Less Options Equal More Click II
A couple of weeks ago I brought up the idea that if I could decrease the clutter on my pages and only have one or two ads up on a page that I could increase my CTR for those pages. Ryan also noted that with this idea I should see an increase in the CPC of the ads because the higher paying ones would get clicked first. How true this has become.
Ever since I made the changes to the design of many of my sites to the extra minimalist style I have seen my eCPM increase anywhere from 50%-100%. My CTR has increased over 100%-200%, but this also has to do with the fact that I added an inline ad on FG for extended entries.
Hopefully as the traffic increases on my lesser known sites I will be able to have better stats to share with everyone, but as it stands now it seems that the strategy has paid off. This is not to say a cluttered page would do any worse, but these designs have been working better than the previous designs I was using.
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POSTED IN: Online Money
12 opinions for Less Options Equal More Click II
Ryan Latham
May 31, 2005 at 11:08 am
By running a single ad unit you have seen results like this? (As many of my ad units come down). I would have anticipated good results; but not on this level.
It all comes down to the way you go against battling it I guess. It will always come down to this:
((CTR / 100) * Impressions) * Cost Per Click
You can either battle this with increasing your page impressions by displaying multiple units on each page (works for WIN and Gawker since they have the traffic) or you could increase the CTR by decreasing the impressions.
I just did the math; and right now I would bust one to have a CTR increase between 100% and 200%. I think I wouldn’t be writing this comment at work, I would still be sleeping; and I would write it later.
Ryan Latham
May 31, 2005 at 4:58 pm
I’m going to take a page that has been consistently has very steady stats and apply a more minimalist design to see if it truly does have an effect on things.
If I like what I see then perhaps my own methods of design will be forced to change a bit; and hell if it doesn’t work out I can always go back to the previous layout.
Should be interesting to see what happens. Does it work as well for others? Is it only certain niches? Some of the things I hope to figure out.
Mike
May 31, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Paul & Ryan,
I can only hope that I have helped by joining in on some of the discussions.
Our AdSense earnings have gone up 1000 % from last month to this one. Thanks to Paul Short and his Content Cash Inferno ver. 1.0..now if we could get him to finish 2.0, I’d be getting that week-end home at the lake a lot sooner.
It’s easy to see that if the reader only has a very few options, he ” wants ” to click something, might as well let him click on a link that pays AND is of the type of info that he desires.
Joshua K
May 31, 2005 at 9:29 pm
What’s the Content Cash Inferno? I’m interested in this as I just got my first check, and was very impressed. I’d love to see it double or multiply TIMES TEN?
Mike
May 31, 2005 at 9:37 pm
Joshua,
Sent you an email. Not fair to clutter up this blog with that info.
Ryan Latham
May 31, 2005 at 11:57 pm
My goals are actually pretty mediocre in the opinions of some. This month I had an outstanding month for AdSense. My goal is to double that next month, and double that the month after.
Certainly I will reach a peak; but once I hope to have met my overall goal. So what is my goal? My overall goal is quite modest in the eyes of some; $75,000 a year, or $6,250 a month, $205 a day.
Hopefully I can continue with my improvements, learn from past mistakes, and come up with new ways to have everything work with me as opposed to against me.
I am still astonished by the figures provided. I knew that less options, and less ads (running 2 sets of 2 as opposed to perhaps 2 sets of 4) would prove to be that much beneficial. However, I see said the blind man; the formula has been in my head since day one, I needed to know it so I used my hackermathics to figure it out.
But the math is there and I trust numbers and algorithms (go figure a programmer trusts that). If you look at it this way…even if your traffic remains the same, and page impressions decrease, you are serving up higher paying ads, and your CTR will go up due to less page impressions. Oblivious or obvious?
Adam Bramwell
Jun 1, 2005 at 12:28 am
I have NFI what your TLA’s mean
colbert
Jun 1, 2005 at 11:56 am
i think.. if it works out for you. why not just use this style. end of the day, once your experiments work, then just use them.
one man’s blog is another man’s butter
David
Jun 1, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Clicks? You mean people get clicks on the advertisements on their blogs… Wow…lucky them. :)
Ryan - Nice goals. I am hoping for around $60 a day in a year. Currently making $60 every two months right now…
Ryan Latham
Jun 1, 2005 at 6:31 pm
Haha David. Yeah I know. We’ve all been there; except Paul…I think AdSense was paying him before he joined up.
Actually I wouldn’t be too unsatisfied with $60 a consistent. Some days I make more than that, other days (weekends mostly) I see far less. I just want to reach a point where either it is consistent; or it is so astronomical that sudden drops don’t make or break me.
JLP at AllThingsFinancial
Jun 8, 2005 at 10:49 pm
Having less clutter makes perfect sense to me. I have been to websites and blogs that are so cluttered with cr*p that it makes viewing them unenjoyable and I bail as soon as I can.
James
Jun 11, 2005 at 4:48 am
“Or it is so astronomical that sudden drops don’t make or break me.”
This is very unlikely, as you will likely already invest the money you earn, then when the drop comes will find you’ve spent it and thus are ‘coming up short’.
It does make sense that the less things are on the page the more likely people are to notice, read, and click them.
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