One the factors that affect click through rates on AdSense is the complexity and simplicity of the webpage design.

Webpages that have a simple, clean look, tend to attract more clicks, than sites that are busy with lots of clutter.

Every element on a webpage will compete for attention from the visitor's eyes. The more elements on a webpage, the fewer clicks you'll get on your AdSense placements.

But don't go removing everything from your website in a zealous endeavor to boost your AdSense CTR. What you need to do instead, is to make sure the elements you have on your website are clearly identified as to what their purpose is.

That is, if you have a place on your webpage for reciprocal links, or a blogroll, then make sure they are labeled as such, and make sure this area has plenty of empty space around it so that it can be clearly recognized at a glance.

Remember, statistics show that about half of your visitors will stay at your website for only 5 seconds or less. What can you do to reduce that percentage? A simple clean website design will help them find the content they're looking for.

Here's a helpful tip...

Try to put yourself in the mind of someone who's visiting your website for the first time, and who has no idea what this website is about. When the website opens up on your web browser, on what area of the page do your eyes want to come to rest?

If your eyes tend to wander around, looking at all the elements, graphics, blinking buttons, and flash animation, then you're basically not looking at anything at all!

As a rule, your eyes should find a comfortable place on the webpage to rest on. Hopefully, that place is your main content. From that point, you surround it with other important elements like navigation links, a site logo, and ads.

Labels: Blog Designs

Which blog design works better with AdSense, a two-column or three-column design?

My experience says to use the three-column design.

But specifically, use a three-column design like the one I'm using on this blog. I have two columns on the left, the first to hold "about us" information, and navigational links. The second to hold advertising.

I've experimented with various blog designs, including two-column designs, ones with the content on left, and ones with the content on the right. Right-sided content placement, with ads on the left, always seem to produce higher click through rates for AdSense.

I think the explanation for this is because people in the western world read everything from left-to-right, and from top-to-bottom. Hence, if you have ads on the left, people will glance over them quickly as their eyes come to rest on the content.

So, why would a three-column design produce higher click-through rates for AdSense, as opposed to two-column? I don't know exactly! I do know that when I look at a two-column blog and compare it a three-column, I find myself looking at the material in the middle column more often. Perhaps the eyes and brain are trained to believe that the column in the middle is always important, while the outside areas are less important.

Two years ago, I wrote an article on the very same subject, and published it on In Your Web...

http://www.inyourweb.com/2005/09/which-blog-designs-work-best.htm

Except on this article I said to place the content on the far left, and the two columns on the right. I went on to say that this produces more clicks on AdSense. However, in the two years since I wrote that article, I'm discovering the opposite is true, to place the content on the right, and the two other columns on the left!

Just goes to show that I'm constantly learning as I go along.

Labels: Blog Designs