CTRTheme - Case Study

[RuiGomes]

I've been using a free template with a few customizations by me but I wanted to test CTRTheme since I've been hearing very nice things of that template lately.

So let's cut the bullshit and let me get straight to the point:

- I have a micro-niche site receiving an average of 200 hits a month ranking at #7 at Google;
- The CTR for July and this first days of August was: 6.62%
- The bounce rate was: 64,43%

My old template looks like this:

Now I've just instaled CTR theme with my Adsense banners installed and I will report the CPC every day until the end of August and then I'll compare the CTR.
Of course, YMMV since your beginning template is not the same as mine, but this Case Study will give you a good idea of the improvements on CTR by using this template.

Of course, thanks are appreciated and comments are too!

 

[s4nt0s]

The only difference between the CTR theme and the layout you have now is the 2 150x150 blocks in the content area .. .well that and the theme is dynamic so the ad's constantly change.

I have CTR and Clickbump and haven't really noticed much difference in CTR between the two.

This will be a good case study to see, I'll be bookmarking this.

 

[phluid]

Is your CTR rate by total page views given in adsense or by the total number of visitors you would get on the site as shown in analytics?

CTR by total page views on some sites I often get 9-15% but if you do the CTR by visitor instead of page views I am often getting 35-50%

 

[cbnoob]

found your website .

 

[StormClaw]

site must be related to guitars!

 

[RuiGomes]

The only difference between the CTR theme and the layout you have now is the 2 150x150 blocks in the content area .. .well that and the theme is dynamic so the ad's constantly change.

I have CTR and Clickbump and haven't really noticed much difference in CTR between the two.

This will be a good case study to see, I'll be bookmarking this.

I sure have more ads now, but I will take that in consideration. On the other hand, CTRTheme is sh*t when it comes to navigate to other blog pages.

Is your CTR rate by total page views given in adsense or by the total number of visitors you would get on the site as shown in analytics?

CTR by total page views on some sites I often get 9-15% but if you do the CTR by visitor instead of page views I am often getting 35-50%

I'm using the CTR provided by Adsense.

found your website .

Great

site must be related to guitars!

It is, just read the link ads

 

[neodregan]

Oh, a new niche!

Haha j/k. gl with the case study.

 

[dbox1234567]

Hey guy.
How do you do SEO for this micro niche website
Could you tell me exactly method to do?

 

[RuiGomes]

Hey guy.
How do you do SEO for this micro niche website
Could you tell me exactly method to do?

Install basic SEO plugins for On-site SEO and create backlinks for off-site SEO.

 

[RuiGomes]

Day 1 Stats

Ok, so as I said the previous CTR was 6.62% with the old template.

Today my CTR was 5.00%. It dropped 1.6%.

However, I got a 1.25? click. So maybe this template makes visitors click ads with a higher CPC.

I will let this template for a month to compare the results.

 

[Scripteen]

Your serps may be affected because of changing the theme (on site seo). You can still keep your old theme and experiment different ad positions for better CTR. I'd recommend testing each position change for a full week.

 

[RuiGomes]

Your serps may be affected because of changing the theme (on site seo). You can still keep your old theme and experiment different ad positions for better CTR. I'd recommend testing each position change for a full week.

No changes in the rankings.

CTRtheme changes positions on each page load, but I'll test it for a full month too see if I have any improvements on CTR.
If not, I will return to the old template, which is a lot more user friendly.

 

[Scripteen]

No changes in the rankings.

Did google update the cache of your website with the new theme?

 

[RuiGomes]

Did google update the cache of your website with the new theme?

Not yet.

 

[Graemyx]

very very interesting thread, I'll be following you for sure. I always wondered if CTRtheme was actually worth it.

 

[SahL]

If this is success, all the new blogs i make would be on CTR theme,

no matter how crappy they look

 

[RuiGomes]

very very interesting thread, I'll be following you for sure. I always wondered if CTRtheme was actually worth it.

I had that doubt for a long time and now I will make my own test and share it with you guys

If this is success, all the new blogs i make would be on CTR theme,

no matter how crappy they look

Some of their templates don't look that bad, but with 4 blocks of ads (1 being a link unit) it's almost impossible to provide a good user experience.

Don't forget to thanks and leave your opinions

 

[citylightz]

I found your site as well. Sorry but I couldn't resist looking. The cache still hasn't changed so I could also see the original template.

It looks like you only have three posts on three pages as opposed to the original having three posts on one page.

Won't that few posts/articles make the site more vulnerable to changes in the serps and therefore less accurate testing for just the change of the template/theme?

 

[SammyBlackstar]

CTR Theme can look really good if you get a custom banner and add and optin e-mail at the top widget. Don't make it too spammy or you will get quality control slapped.

 

[RuiGomes]

I found your site as well. Sorry but I couldn't resist looking. The cache still hasn't changed so I could also see the original template.

It looks like you only have three posts on three pages as opposed to the original having three posts on one page.

Won't that few posts/articles make the site more vulnerable to changes in the serps and therefore less accurate testing for just the change of the template/theme?

No problem, I don't fear competition
Actually the only thing that matters here is CTR.. Even if my rankings go down, CTR is just clicks vs. pageviews, so it really doesn't matter.

But I hope that I go up, not down, since I created 30+ manual web 2.0s and blasted the hell out of them with scrapebox and AMR.

CTR Theme can look really good if you get a custom banner and add and optin e-mail at the top widget. Don't make it too spammy or you will get quality control slapped.

It is almost impossible not to make it look spammy with 4 ad blocks :06: