Changing WordPress Themes To Increase Income

Does the look and layout of your Theme make a difference in your blog’s income? Some have said that if you want to make more money from Adsense, you should use a very boring and minimalistic Theme so your readers will get so bored looking at your blog that they will find their way out by clicking on your Ads. Some however, have contradicting views when they argue that your Theme should be as attractive as possible so people will stay longer thus giving them a higher chance of seeing your Ads.

There are so many theories and hearsay when it comes to choosing a Theme, especially if you are using WordPress. From paid Themes to free Themes, the net is flooded with them and users are spoiled for choices. The question remains though, Will the looks of your Theme effect your income? It is a tough question to answer.

I risked my quite consistent income for this blog to make a small experiment last month. I moved my sidebars down to the footer area so my main column looked very clean and un-obstructive with nothing whatsoever to distract my readers.

First, income from this blog is derived mainly from sales commissions of the Thesis Theme, membership sign ups with Elegant Themes, affiliate commissions from sales of the 7 Dollar Script and the sporadic sales of the other premium Themes which is quite negligible.

In a normal month, I usually hit about 13 sales or more for the Thesis Theme, another 10 to 13 sign ups for Elegant Themes and lately after I ran a series on Selling Your Own Products, I was able to get about 8 to 10 buyers for the script which I make the full 7 dollars commission.

Last month after the change, despite the same kind of traffic, sales of the Thesis Theme dropped to 9. Sign ups for Elegant Themes 5. Seven dollar scripts, 2.

Two days ago, I placed back the block banners to the main column.

In one day after the move, 2 sales of Thesis Theme and 3 sign ups with Elegant Themes.

Whether this is just a coincidence or if indeed the move did effect my sales remains to be seen, but I think this small experiment is enough to give me sufficient reason and justification to change the layout of my Theme yet again.

I have always maintained the opinion that if you want people clicking on your Ads or your banners, make them as visible as possible. Many have taken the advise of ‘blending’ their ads into their blogs so they do not look like Ads. It has been advised that if people knows that it is obviously an Ad, people will try to avoid it. I don’t know about others, but if it does not look like an Ad to me, I will not even be taking a second look, lest click on it out of curiosity.

I really haven’t decided on how the new layout for this blog will look, but I have been snooping around for inspiration. I have changed my theme layout so many times that I have totally ran out of innovations. Maybe this time around I can come up with something that I can keep for at least a year or two. To make that happen, the new Theme layout must be able to increase my income. Else, I get disillusioned quite easily. And quickly.