Mistakes to learn from: Two arbitrage layouts with crappy CTRs

Status
Not open for further replies.
Well engaged, I'm on a fairly low budget until I start making more. I've heard an arbitrage site should be in the 40-60% CTR range, and it seems that I'm not going to be there with these layouts. I'm planning to keep spending about this much while tweaking them... it is a small sample size, but not so small that I shouldn't notice if I find a layout capable of 40%+ instead of 10%. Even if I can break 25% CTR consistently I'll probably put a lot more money into it.

Care to elaborate on the misinformation?
 


The helpwebmaster.com layout is really pushing the envelope with regards to Google's Terms of Service. Matching the font and color of the ads is okay, but I've seen plenty of examples of people who were told to change their layout (or maybe even banned, I forget) for making their content look exactly like the ads.
 
Setec said:
The helpwebmaster.com layout is really pushing the envelope with regards to Google's Terms of Service. Matching the font and color of the ads is okay, but I've seen plenty of examples of people who were told to change their layout (or maybe even banned, I forget) for making their content look exactly like the ads.
Click to expand...

Also, the site lacks any outbound links to another site which is required by Google's TOS.
 
chrislingle said:
pocketrockets - do you do any arbitrage? nobody uses outbound links except for the google ads! lol
Click to expand...

Yes, I do have a few arbitrage sites. I use one outbound link (at the very end of the page without a colored link) on each site because it's not worth the risk to me and I don't want to give Google any reasons to terminate my account.
 
I think you are trying too hard. Remember this simple rule...

KISS

Keep
It
Simple
Stupid

I am using simple layouts that border ugly. The only graphics I have are on the side of the ads. I use 1 or 2 large rectangles only. I have about a 50% CTR on these sites. The ad text matches the site text and the Link is standard 0000FF blue.

I made a special site where I actually used an image for the product and blended the ad links with the rest of the page (no blue links on this one). It gets more traffic, but the CTR is 25-33%. Since it's making some money, I'm leaving it as is, but somewhere down the line, I plan on switching to the basic ugly template to see if it performs better.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom