How To Increase Your Adsense CTR by 1% With One Simple Change

February 17th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Although my performance has dipped over the last couple of months, Google Adsense still remains my number one source of blogging revenue. I’ve spent a lot of time tweaking my ad positions to find the optimal positions, adding section targetting and making the most of smart pricing to maximise my earnings and I thought I had Adsense totally figured out.

Imagine my surprise when my blogging partner Martin who runs gHacks sent over a very simple tip that increased my adsense CTR by 1% overnight!

The tip couldn’t be simplier. If you look at the only adsense unit on my page (I removed all the others to get the maximum benefit from smart pricing) I have used a div tag to embed it within the content. by adding a <br /> after the closing div, it has pushed the adsense unit up ever so slightly, so that the top of the ad is now just above the top of the content, whereas before it was slightly below.

My single.php code now looks like:

adsense code

I’ve been stunned by how such a small change has made such a big difference. I guess it increases the chances that a user spots the ad, and getting 1 in one hundred more visitors to do this obviously has a big impact!

If you are looking for more money making tips, then check out my summary post that offers lot of great tips and methods.

Bookmark

  Digg it   Save This Page   Google
Enjoyed This Post? Subscribe To Get Updates!

About the Author

author photo

Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK.

See All Posts by This Author

« Blog Housekeeping: Wanted! A Expert WordPress/Server Optimiser Show Me Your Desktop, Sarah Meyers »

There Are 17 Responses So Far. »

Pages: [2] 1 » Show All

  1. 17

    Comment by Everton on 29 February 2008:

    @Sumesh

    I think on top is bad personally as you are almost encouraging people to scroll past the ad to the content, whereas floating is harder to ignore as it’s right next to the content i.e. won’t go away

  2. 16

    Comment by Sumesh on 29 February 2008:

    Smart pricing is quite amazing, and I too have only an 300x unit on top.

    Cool tip, and I’ll try it too. But I wonder whether an ad unit without any float, on top, is better, because it takes more attention than content. For example, my site has such ad placing. Everton, could you actually compare and tell me which is better?

  3. 15

    Comment by Martin on 18 February 2008:

    I’m glad I could be of service :)

  4. 14

    Comment by Guadagno Online on 18 February 2008:

    Great tips, I actually make sense!

    I am going to try it out, I will keep you posted on the result!

    Francesco

  5. 13

    Comment by Joel on 18 February 2008:

    Sounds simple…will try it and let you know…

  6. 12

    Comment by Zath on 18 February 2008:

    Sounds like a good change to try out Everton, I’ll give it a go and see if I notice a difference, thanks for the tip!

  7. 11

    Comment by Everton on 18 February 2008:

    @bert

    I deleted TNX as I wasn’t happy with the ads that were being sold.

Pages: [2] 1 » Show All

Subscribe without commenting

Post a Response

Comment Policy: Any comments are permitted only because the site owner is letting you post, and any comments could be removed for any reason at the absolute discretion of the site owner.