The Biggest Secret (Maybe) To Increase Your Adsense CTR (Click Through Ratio)

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I’m really letting the cat out of the bag on this one. I’ve been using Adsense as a monetization stream for over two years now and one thing that I discovered was how to skyrocket my Adsense click through ratio (CTR) using a very specific web page layout. A web page layout that I really stumbled upon by accident while I was redesigning my own sites. It’s not a page layout I use on any of my sites now because I have different priorities for them than I did before (i.e., maximizing CTR is not one of my priorities at this point). But, if you are solely concerned with CTR on Adsense or similar contextual (or even non-contextual) ads, you should read on…

[Note: Below, in order to provide context and for completeness, I first discuss common blog designs then discuss consensus optimization techniques. If you just want to get to the meat of this post, skip those two sections to the section entitled "Introducing the Killer Four Column Layout Strategy".]

The Current Common Designs

Most blogs have a two column layout. One column for the main posts and one column for the navigation and links. The default Kubrick Wordpress template is a prime example of a classic two column layout.

Another type of common layout is the three column layout with main center column. In that case, the main posts are in the middle column with two, less-wide, side columns for navigation and links. Here’s an example of the classic three column layout.

Finally, there are the layouts with three columns where the main column is at the far left and two smaller columns containing shorter articles or links grouped together on the right. The Blog Herald and the Engadget have this layout.

The Current Consensus Thinking On Adsense Ad Optimization

Google has an official guide dedicated to helping you maximize your revenues from Adsense. [You can find it here.]

Besides Google, others recommend that:

• Borders be removed
• Ads have classic blue links
• URLs of the advertisers have a color similar in tone to the background color (but not identical since you are not allowed to obscure any part of the ad completely)
• Text of the ads be black
• Background color of the ads match the page’s background color
• Use the largest ad size possible
• Use images next to the ads (though for Adsense this is now specifically disallowed)
• Place the first ad block “above the fold”

Introducing The Killer Four Column Layout Strategy (KFCLS)

Layout Design

With the basics out of the way, let’s move on to the heart of this post.

I’ve found that the most effective page layout that generated the highest click through ratio was quite unconventional and something I’ve never seen before (or since, for that matter). In my attempt to create a “newspaper-like”, tabloid layout for a gadget-focused blog, I created an index page layout that was four columns wide.

The middle two columns had the main posts for the blog while the two side columns were each half as wide as a main post column. The two side columns contained navigation links and links to my recent posts, top posts, etc. There was also a row that spanned the width of the main post columns after the first two “boxes” where I also had Adsense ads. Finally, the whole content area was 800 pixels wide to fit the lowest resolution screen monitors.

Insertion of ad boxes were in the first main content box, the row that spans the width of the main post columns and finally the box that is kitty-corner to the other ad. The final layout was like this:

Effect On Ad Performance (CTR)

I have to be careful to not violate the Google Adsense TOS so therefore my discussion here is in the hypothetical. These don’t represent any CTRs on any of my sites but, rather, are my conclusions based on my analyses of a number of factors and from a number of sources.

In general, I believe most sites with Adsense-friendly content generate a CTR of, on average, 3 percent to 7 percent. Depending on the source of advertising, this can be very significant in terms of aggregate revenue. However, I believe from my own analyses, CTR can be increased 300 percent to 500 percent with the implementation of the KFCLS on the home page of a site/blog. Therefore, a page with a CTR of 3 percent otherwise could improve to up to 15 percent and a page with a CTR of 7 percent otherwise could improve to up to 21 percent.

Here is the heat map of a site with the KFCLS implemented, compared to the official Google Adsense heat map:

One final thought, I found that adding pictures to the posts contributed to the increased CTR.

Why This May Not Work For You

You may implement this and find that it doesn’t work. I’m not guaranteeing that this will work for your blog/site or for any blog/site. I’m merely sharing my conclusions.

In general, I expect the following types of sites will find implementing the KFCLS beneficial:

• Sites focusing on a specific consumer product/topic area
• Sites where visitors come from searches from the search engines
• Sites that already have good CTR and earnings
• Sites that have a majority of visitors from MSN (since these visitors tend to click the most)

In general, I expect the following types of sites will not find the implementation of KFCLS to have a significant impact on their CTR:

• Sites without a clear focus
• Sites that don’t focus on a consumer product/service
• Sites that have a majority of repeat visitors (since repeat visitors tend not to click as much)
• Sites that have a majority of visitors from Google (since theses visitors don’t click as much as compared to Yahoo or MSN)

Conclusion

What I’ve revealed may not only be applicable to Google Adsense ads, but may also increase the CTR of other ads, both contextual and non-contextual. However, I only tested the KFCLS with Google Adsense ads. Also, I generally don’t like blogs/sites that are 800 pixels wide. While at one time, designing for that width made sense, most monitors now display much higher resolutions. You may be able to implement the suggested changes and see different results for different proportions.

Finally, A Plug For Me And I Help You Blog Plus An “Extra”

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