For those who don’t know what CTR or Click-Through Rate is, it is the number of times visitors click on the ad placed on your blog divided by the number of views your blog gets. The business rules are simple. You get paid per click that is made on an ad placed in the blog. But, there are certain factors that control the way users click on such ads. The prime reason for placing such ads is to bring the reader close to a purchase decision.
Listed below are 5 ways to increase your CTR on blog posts.
- Catchy headline or message
The headline of the ad is like the elevator sales pitch. Learning the art of how to create a blog is not everything. One chance and it’s either a click or ignored. So a catchy meta title and meta description does more than half the work for you. They improve the user engagement by around 500% so the blog post shares a greater chance of CTR. A catchy title is necessary as most of the people on the internet is speed readers who have less time to focus on such ads.
- Presentation matters
A well-presented and maintained page is more likely to make the reader feel good than a messy page with ads placed all over. So the layout design of the page, the font size and style along with the quality of images matters. This creates an ambience for the ad as the placement and click on an ad depends on it. A good looking page containing an ad is more likely to get a click, so make sure your blog post looks neat when opened. This is one way in which CTR can be improved.
- Dodge ad blocks
A big hurdle your CTR and in turn, ads may face is the ad blocks that are on the host computer or mobile. To get through them, you need to test your ads before by applying it by yourself and check if it is good enough to dodge it. One advice is to use three ad blocks and three links for each page of the site. Do not try to blend your ads in the content or play with the colors or fonts. If people can read the headline and if they feel interested, they will click on it. It’s that simple.
- Two in between content
It is seen that although it is discouraged to place ads between your content, but the metrics show that those that are placed in between content in a proper manner get the most clicks. Additionally, color influences, but in the right amount. Use maroon red rather than blue to catch attention. The click on ads after the content gets lesser views, so there are more chances for a click on the ad before the content ends, thereby improving your CTR.
- Text and image based ad works
Adsense lets you choose between a text-based and an image-based ad. Both yield different results. But text combined with image allows advertisers to bid on it and this increases your overall cost per click thereby improving your CTR. Never expect an exponential increase, but over time, it gives better results than a solely text or an image based ad.
Decoding how to increase CTR doesn’t really have to be difficult, all you have to do is just implement the above mentioned ways in your blog and see the magic!
Author – Charlie Robinson
(He is a marketer and interim VP of Marketing of multiple tech companies. He is currently heading marketing at Adling a digital agency in Cupertino).
