Adsense loving bloggers take note. If you’re looking to make money blogging and you’re on the hunt for just the right Adsense Optimized Wordpress or Blogger Theme, Sensely’s newly released Adsense Optimized Theme is a must see. Although there are many free adsense optimized themes available on the web for free download, the majority of them are buggy eye-sores that ruin the user experience, and don’t really take into account the technical aspects of what really makes adsense perform. Sensely’s adsense theme package comes with a lot of extras and customizable options but it’s also got a (low-range) premium theme price tag. So why pay for this theme? Here’s a quick review of what you get for the money.

Maximum Adsense Exposure With A Clean Professional Look

The major problem with the majority of “Adsense Optimized Themes” out there is simple — too many adsense ads. Google’s TOS give you a surprising number of ad options per page, and using the maximum number can be overwhelming to users, especially if they don’t blend into the design. Most blogging themes that are designed around maximizing adsense revenue overdo it and end up with a bad adsense-to-content ratio that just alienates visitors. The result is that the site becomes less “sticky” and you’ll get a high bounce rate, which will significantly reduce your earnings. Remember that adsense isn’t new and people hate ads - the trick is to blend them into the site design so that they’re unobtrusive. People want content first and foremost. Ads that complement the content without detracting from the design perform best. In my opinion, the Sensely template does a really good job of getting the maximum number of Ad Blocks in without sacrificing design.

Technically Sound Adsense Usage And Placement

“Ad Optimization” doesn’t just mean “more.” When it comes to Adsense, there are many technical subtleties to ad choice, placement and design that great webmasters know make a huge difference to earnings and click through rates (CTR). Sensely’s templates maximize the exposure of 2 336 X 280 blocks above the fold, for example, while using 3 way matching principals to blend the large ad blocks in with the design. Statistical studies have shown that not only do the 336 X 280 text ad blocks perform the best in general, but giving the blocks placement above the fold affects Google’s algorithms and actually increases your earnings per click for those ads. This template gives 2 of these blocks high-profile status while also including a blended adsense ad stripe in a strip that looks a heck of a lot like a menu - another bonus for CTR because menu-seeking eyes go straight to it. After a quick review of the Sensely template demo, I was pretty impressed with the ad placement from a technical standpoint and the blending looks good, although the Sensely demo doesn’t give users a chance to see all of the various customization options, so I can’t comment on those. For a make-money blog, though, the color scheme and the header would definitely have to change, but changing these is supposedly easy and 50 different headers and included in the package.

Multiple Platform Options

Although this template is offered in a variety of flavors for both Wordpress and Blogger, I’d suggest the former hosted on your own server if you’re serious about using this template for making money online. You’ll have a lot more control over the formatting and the ads etc, not to mention dozens more SEO plugins and tools to drive traffic to the site. Also, don’t forget that you can always replace the adsense blocks with banners and ads from other programs. Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily regardless of your choice of platform.

Make Additional Revenue Through The Sensely Affiliate Programs

Let’s keep this honest. It’s pretty obvious that the Sensely Template was made to sell through their affiliate program, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Why not make extra money promoting it? Their affiliate program pays out 50% per $47 sale. Sensely also gives you a back end with some affiliate banners and some very basic tracking tools - nothing state of the art, but it’s better than nothing and it takes 2 minutes to set up and get approval. Here’s a screenshot of the back end.

Final Thoughts On This Theme

I’ve highlighted a lot of the potential pros of this theme in this post but, before I’m done, I want to make sure I address a couple of small things I noticed when reviewing the Sensely site that, as a consumer, would throw up a few red flags for me. The first is that the “sell” page boasts that this theme gets a click through rate of over 10% and they include a screenshot from Adsense as evidence, but the screenshot doesn’t include page views to complement the high CTR, so it really tells you nothing (1 click by only one viewer = 100% CTR ;-)). While the theme’s ad placement, block choice and blending look great on the demo, 10% CTR on any site seems ambitious. Most sites get 1-3%, 3% on the high end for well crafted, targeted content. The claim that any theme yields results like 10% CTR without any evaluation of content should be carefully evaluated. While it may be true that this site really performs well, getting earning mileage with this theme and adsense is going to be based on your niche, solid consistent traffic, and density of targeted keywords within each post. The second thing that bothered me is that there aren’t any testimonials, even though they’ve included a tab for it. The page just says “coming soon.” OK, they’ve only just released the theme, but it shows a lack of planning on their part and for $47 a pop, it doesn’t exactly help convince me - if anything, the opposite.

So is this theme worth $47? Totally up to you. Personally, I think it completely depends on your existing content. This theme will almost definitely pay itself off (maybe even in a matter of days) if you’ve already got significant traffic and you spend some time tailoring the theme to your niche. Technically speaking, this theme looks like it does everything right when it comes to adsense. The final choice, of course, is yours.

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