Traffic is the most fundamental requirement for generating revenue from AdSense. If your blog or website receives a decent traffic, then you will surely earn good. But sometimes, blogs and websites with high traffic don't earn good due to low CTR (Click Through Rate) and if you are among those, then keep reading this article. You will learn some best practices which will help you in increasing CTR on your AdSense ads and in turn your earnings will grow.
What Should be the Normal CTR
A normal CTR should stay between 2% and 5%. At this CTR, your blog not only earns good, but it also stays safe. Alternatively, if your ads receive too many or few clicks, then not only the blog earnings drop, but the AdSense account may also exposed to risks. Suppose if ads on your blog receives too many impressions but don't receive much clicks, then CTR will be very low (i.e. even below 1%) or the CTR may stay above 10% in some circumstances. Both of these conditions result in a dramatic drop of CPC and very less revenue is generated. This phenomenon is called the smart pricing. At the end of this article, we will discuss how to eliminate the smart pricing. But first, lets discuss how to increase the AdSense CTR if it is too low.
Ad Placement is Most Important in Improving CTR
Perfect ad placement is the most important in maintaining a good CTR. Ads usually perform good when they are placed above the fold. It doesn't mean that all ads must be placed at the top of the page. In general, CTR improves when ads are easily visible to the visitors. So if your current ad placement isn't producing good results and you don't have any idea what will do good, then start by placing one ad at the top of content, second near top on sidebar and the third one near bottom of the content. Ads near bottom of the content also produce brilliant results. When visitors finish reading your content and reach the bottom, then they are about to leave your blog or website and the ad may be their choice.
Although two ads above content and one near bottom perform good but it is not always necessary that this ad placement is the best placement to main a good CTR. This placement may not work for your theme or template so the best practice to improve CTR is that do experiment. Keep changing the position of ads after one or two days and note the CTR either it has improved or not. If it doesn't again change the placement and after a few experiments, you will find the best ad placement for your blog or website.
Never Ignore Targeted Traffic
Niche-specific blogs and websites perform good with AdSense. If your blog or website contains content related with a specific niche and the traffic is also targeted, i.e. from search engines, then the CTR surely stays good. Niche-specific blogs contribute to a good CTR. Firstly, AdSense recognizes the niche and starts showing highly relevant ads with the content. Now if the traffic is targeted, then these ads attract the visitors and the CTR stays good.
Keep Changing Ad Position
Yet another good practice to increase AdSense CTR is to keep switching between some good ad placements. First do experiment and find out some good ad positions which produce good CTR. Now keep switching between these ad placements periodically. When you stick to one type of placement, then repeating visitors start ignoring the ads. This is called ad blindness and the periodic change in ad placement is the best practice to overcome this.
These were three most important practices to increase AdSense CTR. Now lets discuss, how to get rid of smart pricing which we discussed at the beginning.
How to Get Rid of Smart Pricing
This is usually caused due to very low CTR. High CTR is rarely responsible for this phenomenon. If you are a victim of smart pricing due to very high CTR, then you might have done something tricky with your ads and you must quit it. Alternatively, if your ads receive a lot of impressions and very few clicks, then you must find a good ad placement by experimenting as we discussed earlier. Once your CTR will improve and will reach at a normal stage, the CPC will also grow within a few days. i.e. smart pricing will be lifted from concerned publisher account. So the treatment to smart pricing is maintaining a normal CTR.
These were some tips to help you in maintaining a good click through rate on your AdSense ads. I hope you will find them working. If you have any suggestion, don't forget to share with us by leaving your comment. Thank you!
