Click-Through Rate CTR is the number of clicks received for every hundred ad impressions. That is, if you display one Google AdSense ad unit on your blog and it is shown 100 times and if visitors clicked on it 2 times; then you're getting 2% CTR.
Google AdSense is perhaps the most reliable way for professional bloggers to earn income from blogging. Thus, learning how to increase Google AdSense CTR. High Click-through Rate is important factor in revenue that you can get from ads on your blog or website. Bloggers display Google ads on their blog. When their readers click on such ads, bloggers get a share in revenue from Google.
How Much Should Be CTR?
There are some novice bloggers out there who claim to have CTR rate of 20% or above. All this is a lie. Such high CTR rates can not be achieved without playing tricks and doing manipulations (like ads in floating DIV or altering look of ads with CSS). Google badly punishes such attempts of unnaturally increasing CTR. Click-through rate of 2-3% is good. Even up to 5% is also good. But if it is higher than 5%, you should be concerned. This is because Google will take notice of such high CTR and will look deep into your website. If it finds that you're violating AdSense policies, your AdSense account could blocked forever.
As I said, by trying and increase CTR rate you can balance the effect of low CPC to some extent. It is important that your website or blog gets a healthy CTR. Let's have a look at methods that can help you in this regard:
1. Placement of Ads
This is probably the most obvious and most important factor. CTR has a lot to do with where exactly you place your ads. In general, it is recommended that the ads that are placed within or near the actual content, such ads will get better CTR. Well-placed ads get more eyeballs and therefore more CTR.
Which are the best positions for AdSense Ads?
• Right below post title
• After two paragraphs in the content
• At the end of the post content
• Top of the sidebar Sidebar
• Header
2. Responsive layout
Even if most of your readers are using desktop to read your blog, you must not be ignorant about the importance of having a responsive website layout.
If your website is not responsive, you will lose a significant amount of CTR that you could have gained through your readers who open your blog on mobile phones. Blogger.com is naturally not mobile friendly. Placing ad on desktop view won't appear mobile without directly working on the Html code. Simply type: /?m=1 after your site name e.g www.yoursite.blogspot.com/?m=1 or www.yoursite.com/?m=1 if you have hosted domain, Check out if your website is mobile responsive. If it is not! Make it!
3. Sizes of Ads
Bigger ads get noticed rather easily and increase CTR rate. But this theory should not prompt you to use ONLY the biggest available ads! Actually, ads must look naturally and easily fit in the layout of your website. If your ad size will be "odd", the overall look and feel of your blog will suffer and you'll lose readers.
You should look for the best AdSense ad size that suits your website. There is no universally best performing ad size or type.
4. Avoid Ad Blindness
If you have a good number of regular readers, you should consider the factor of ad blindness. Those readers who regularly come back to your website, they become the so-called "ad-blind"… they become so used to with your blog's layout that their brain will stop noticing places where you put ads. Remember, readers are coming to your blog to read content and not to see or click on your ads. So, they will ignore ad spaces. As a result, CTR and revenue both will decrease.
You can avoid ad blindness by regularly changing the position, sizes and types of your ads. If you're using other ad networks as alternative of AdSense, some of these networks do provide unconventional ad formats. Such ad formats help in reducing ad blindness.
5. Niche and Good Quality Content
If your website caters to a particular niche, it is more likely that your CTR will be on higher side. This is because Google AdSense is a contextual ad serving program. It serves ads which are related with the content of your website. So, the readers are likely to click ads that are from same or similar domain of information.
Quality of content is indisputably most important criteria for the success of your website. Good quality content not only gets you more traffic but also anchors the traffic on your website for longer period. And thereby it increases the chances of higher CTR.
6. Increase Search Traffic
This is a the holy-grail of blogging. If most of your website traffic is not coming from search engines, it is not a good situation. I would say that at least 70% of your overall traffic should be from search engines. Visitors who come through search engines are more likely to click on ads because those people are on a quest to find information.
7. Reduce Bounce Rate
You must try to reduce bounce rate of your blog to as low as possible. A lower bounce rate means that readers visit more pages, they see more ads and therefore are more likely to click on AdSense ads. The result? A higher CTR. Having Trending, popular related articles below you post will help reduce bounce rate.
How much CTR are you getting? Do you think you need to increase your AdSense CTR? Share in comments and discuss any issue you're facing regarding CTR.
Google AdSense is perhaps the most reliable way for professional bloggers to earn income from blogging. Thus, learning how to increase Google AdSense CTR. High Click-through Rate is important factor in revenue that you can get from ads on your blog or website. Bloggers display Google ads on their blog. When their readers click on such ads, bloggers get a share in revenue from Google.
How Much Should Be CTR?
There are some novice bloggers out there who claim to have CTR rate of 20% or above. All this is a lie. Such high CTR rates can not be achieved without playing tricks and doing manipulations (like ads in floating DIV or altering look of ads with CSS). Google badly punishes such attempts of unnaturally increasing CTR. Click-through rate of 2-3% is good. Even up to 5% is also good. But if it is higher than 5%, you should be concerned. This is because Google will take notice of such high CTR and will look deep into your website. If it finds that you're violating AdSense policies, your AdSense account could blocked forever.
As I said, by trying and increase CTR rate you can balance the effect of low CPC to some extent. It is important that your website or blog gets a healthy CTR. Let's have a look at methods that can help you in this regard:
1. Placement of Ads
This is probably the most obvious and most important factor. CTR has a lot to do with where exactly you place your ads. In general, it is recommended that the ads that are placed within or near the actual content, such ads will get better CTR. Well-placed ads get more eyeballs and therefore more CTR.
Which are the best positions for AdSense Ads?
• Right below post title
• After two paragraphs in the content
• At the end of the post content
• Top of the sidebar Sidebar
• Header
2. Responsive layout
Even if most of your readers are using desktop to read your blog, you must not be ignorant about the importance of having a responsive website layout.
If your website is not responsive, you will lose a significant amount of CTR that you could have gained through your readers who open your blog on mobile phones. Blogger.com is naturally not mobile friendly. Placing ad on desktop view won't appear mobile without directly working on the Html code. Simply type: /?m=1 after your site name e.g www.yoursite.blogspot.com/?m=1 or www.yoursite.com/?m=1 if you have hosted domain, Check out if your website is mobile responsive. If it is not! Make it!
3. Sizes of Ads
Bigger ads get noticed rather easily and increase CTR rate. But this theory should not prompt you to use ONLY the biggest available ads! Actually, ads must look naturally and easily fit in the layout of your website. If your ad size will be "odd", the overall look and feel of your blog will suffer and you'll lose readers.
You should look for the best AdSense ad size that suits your website. There is no universally best performing ad size or type.
4. Avoid Ad Blindness
If you have a good number of regular readers, you should consider the factor of ad blindness. Those readers who regularly come back to your website, they become the so-called "ad-blind"… they become so used to with your blog's layout that their brain will stop noticing places where you put ads. Remember, readers are coming to your blog to read content and not to see or click on your ads. So, they will ignore ad spaces. As a result, CTR and revenue both will decrease.
You can avoid ad blindness by regularly changing the position, sizes and types of your ads. If you're using other ad networks as alternative of AdSense, some of these networks do provide unconventional ad formats. Such ad formats help in reducing ad blindness.
5. Niche and Good Quality Content
If your website caters to a particular niche, it is more likely that your CTR will be on higher side. This is because Google AdSense is a contextual ad serving program. It serves ads which are related with the content of your website. So, the readers are likely to click ads that are from same or similar domain of information.
Quality of content is indisputably most important criteria for the success of your website. Good quality content not only gets you more traffic but also anchors the traffic on your website for longer period. And thereby it increases the chances of higher CTR.
6. Increase Search Traffic
This is a the holy-grail of blogging. If most of your website traffic is not coming from search engines, it is not a good situation. I would say that at least 70% of your overall traffic should be from search engines. Visitors who come through search engines are more likely to click on ads because those people are on a quest to find information.
7. Reduce Bounce Rate
You must try to reduce bounce rate of your blog to as low as possible. A lower bounce rate means that readers visit more pages, they see more ads and therefore are more likely to click on AdSense ads. The result? A higher CTR. Having Trending, popular related articles below you post will help reduce bounce rate.
How much CTR are you getting? Do you think you need to increase your AdSense CTR? Share in comments and discuss any issue you're facing regarding CTR.
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