Choose the Best Colors For Your Ad Blocks

Most new AdSense publishers have read that making the border color and the

background of your AdSense ad blocks match the web page on which the ads will

appear will improve your CTR. This is generally true (but not always, as the “Facts and

Figures” section reveals). As a general rule of thumb you will see an increase in CTR

by making your ad background and border colors the same as the background of your

web page.



So, for example, if the background of your pages is white, make the border and

background of your AdSense ads white as well. If your page background is green,

make the border and background of your AdSense ads green. The reason for this is

that it blends the ads in with your site so they don’t scream “Advertisement!” If ads

scream out that they are ads, people will not look at them out of banner blindness. But

if you blend the ads with the page, people will look at them, be interested, and click.



Two additions to the above which you may not already be aware of: 1) The

statistics show that using the “standard” blue link color works best, with one exception

that is covered in the “Facts and Figures” section, and 2) You should make the color of

the advertiser’s url a color that does not stand out on the page (that’s the small domain

name or url that appears below the ad text–not the link url). Both of these steps make

your ads look less like ads, thereby increasing your CTR.

One last tip that will really increase your CTR is to make all of the links in the

content portion of your page except the AdSense ad links a color that is 1) not the

traditional blue link color and 2) that is not as bright and noticeable as the traditional

blue (dark green is a good one).



If you do this you will notice that the AdSense links are very, very easily noticed

on the page, so they catch the attention of your visitors right away. Placed in the

appropriate position on the page, it doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to see why this makes

the ads get clicked a lot more.



However, keep your navigation links the same color as your AdSense ad links,

because you want your AdLinks to blend in and look like site navigation.




Don’t worry if this is a lot to try and visualize–I’ll show you an example page of

exactly how to make everything look a little further in the ebook. Base your page layout

on that example and you can’t lose.




Bottom Line: Make the border and background colors of your ads match the

background color of the web page on which the ads will appear, make the link color the

standard “blue”, and make the advertiser url a color that does not stand out. Finally,

make the other links on your page a color that is not the traditional link color (such as

dark green).