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

February 17th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Filed Under: Blogging

Tags: adsense, Blogging, Blogging Tips, CTR, eCPM, gHacks, Google, google adsense, guide, making money online, section targeting, smart pricing

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:

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.

Subscribe To RSS Feed Updates (What is RSS??)

Bookmark & Share

Related Posts

• Don’t Be Afraid To Delete Adsense Units To Make More Money
• Google Adsense Now Permits 3 Ad Link Units
• I’ve increased My Adsense eCPM By 50% Using Section Targeting
• Google Adsense Smart Pricing - Help Please
• Guide To Google Adsense Smart Pricing
• 10 Tips To Improve Google Adsense Earnings
• Looking For Forum Monetisation Tips

«« Blog Housekeeping: Wanted! A Expert WordPress/Server Optimiser

Show Me Your Desktop, Sarah Meyers »»

About the Author

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. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

See All Posts by This Author

There Are 17 Responses So Far. »

1. #1
   

   Comment by Dennis Bjørn Petersen on 17 February 2008:

   WAUW. That is probably one of the simplest tricks I’ve ever seen. Especially if you compare it to the outcome!
2. #2
   

   Comment by Faizal on 17 February 2008:

   how to use this with google blogger?
3. #3
   

   Comment by Everton on 17 February 2008:

   @Faizal

   Switch to Wordpress…..
4. #4
   

   Comment by Micah on 18 February 2008:

   Wow, how interesting this would raise it that much! I’m always surprised how much little changes make such a big difference.
5. #5
   

   Comment by Joseph Plazo on 18 February 2008:

   Hmm… sometimes a 5% change makes 95% increase in benefits.

   Thanks for the tip!
6. #6
   

   Comment by Sridhar Katakam on 18 February 2008:

   Everton: Surely you mean your theme’s index.php and not single.php?
7. #7
   

   Comment by Everton on 18 February 2008:

   @sridhar

   Nope - I only have an adsense unit on my single pages
8. #8
   

   Comment by bert on 18 February 2008:

   By the way, is this site also monetized by Tnx? If so… what does a tnx ad look like on this site…
9. #9
   

   Comment by Cesar on 18 February 2008:

   I never tried ads on the content of my blog. But thanks for the tips. I can use this for my other sites.
10. #10
    

    Comment by Coolest games on 18 February 2008:

    Hmmm
    Now try adding another …means a total of two br tags :)..may be it will increase your ctr by 2 %
11. #11
    

    Comment by Everton on 18 February 2008:

    @bert

    I deleted TNX as I wasn’t happy with the ads that were being sold.
12. #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!
13. #13
    

    Comment by Joel on 18 February 2008:

    Sounds simple…will try it and let you know…
14. #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
15. #15
    

    Comment by Martin on 18 February 2008:

    I’m glad I could be of service
16. #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?
17. #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

Post a Response