Ever wonder why you have place you ads like adsense all over your page and still nobody cares to click? Then maybe you should attend the Search Engine Strategies conference or you can just read Stephan Spencer’s recaps of the days event. It’s a good place to learn how the professionals manage to earn big bucks from their ads.
One tip from Stephan’s site: Optimizing your ads
- Placement: Bottom of page is bad. Good practice is to make link color the same as other links on the site. Another good tactic is to place the ads on the left column where the nav usually is.
- Proximity:
- Ad unit selection: Try a variety of sizes and test.
- Ad unit colors & borders: Don’t use the standard ad unit colors / layout. Mix things up to prevent banner blindness. Try both complimentary and contrasting colors. Most sites find hidden borders yield highest CTR. like 2 or 3 times
- URL filters: Don’t do it as a way to get higher paying ads to appear. Only block your direct competitors or your own websites.
Get more of his tips here.