Now that you’ve decided to make money online through a Wordpress blog, it’s probably a good idea to go hunting for a great Wordpress theme. There are so many free ones on the web already, but many of these are either buggy or they haven’t been optimized for the purposes of making money online. By contrast, the Sensely Template — which serves as the subject of this review — has been designed from the ground-up with Adsense optimization in mind. Naturally, you can swap out the Adsense units for whatever ad network you like.
Professional, Simple and Clean
The first thing that strikes me about the main Sensely landing page is that it doesn’t look like one of those gaudy sales letters. The layout is much more inviting and that’s because it seems that this static site is powered by Wordpress. You almost get the feeling that Sensely.com is a blog and not a sales site.
Of course, we all know that Sensely.com was set up for the sole purpose of selling the Adsense Optimized Template by Sensely. I should mention that, according to the site, the Sensely theme can be used for both Blogger and Wordpress. If you’re serious about blogging, it might be better to opt for the latter on your own domain.
Maximize Your Adsense Earnings
So how good is Sensely at maximizing your Adsense earnings? Let’s have a look at the theme and the ad units included in the template. You can see a semi-live demonstration at the provided demo site.
There are three ad units and one link unit included in the template, all of which come with a color scheme that blends in perfectly with the green-and-orange theme found in the Sensely template. I’m not 100% positive, but it looks like there is a left-aligned inline 300 box, a 336 box off to the right, a 120 skyscraper in the center sidebar, and a four link unit just below the header.
Normally, you wouldn’t want so many ad units on the same page, because you’re effectively letting the lower bids get some precious screen real estate, but seeing how they’re all different sizes, this becomes much less of a concern. Also, based on the self report, this theme is supposed a great click-through rate of about 10%. Your mileage will vary based on keywords, content, and so on.
In terms of layout, the Adsense optimized theme has a very organic feel to it. It seems like the template would work particularly well for blogs focusing on nature, health supplements, alternative medicine, and that kind of thing. It might not be as appropriate for make money online blogs unless you change the color scheme.
The one design element that I particularly enjoy is that it’s a hybrid between being a two-column and three-column template. Near the top of the page, it looks like a two-column blog with a large Adsense block on the right. Scroll a little further down and you get the extra functionality of a third column.
Normal and Premium Affiliate Program
Making all this money from Adsense is probably not enough for you, right? Thankfully, you can also make money by selling other people on the Sensely theme.
While it’s a bit of a lie to saying that this is a unique opportunity, selling people on the Sensely theme is an opportunity for you to make some money. There are two levels to their affiliate program. Normal affiliates earn $20 on every sale, whereas premium affiliates earn $35 on every sale. You become a premium affiliate by selling more than 20 copies a month. Payment is handled by PayPal with a minimum payout level of $50.
There is also a complete affiliate backend so you can keep track of total impressions, total clicks, and total sales (approved/pending/declined). It’s not the most powerful admin tool, but it’s more than what some other Adsense theme sellers offer. There is a limited supply of ad creatives that you can use to sell people on the theme too. I’ve included one of these at the end of this review.
Customize Sensely For Optimal Returns
Is the Sensely Adsense Optimized Template worth $139 of your hard-earned money? That’s up to you to decide. (The lack of testimonials doesn’t help.) I think that the theme looks clean and professional, but it’s also a little too simple for power users.
A little customization on your part can help push this template over the top and if that 10% CTR really comes to fruition, then you can totally justify the $139 investment. Whether that claim is hogwash or not, however, remains to be seen.
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(10 votes, average: 3.2 out of 5)
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ugly ass theme
Thanks so much for your positive comment!
The wordpress theme comes with 7 pre-installed styles. Blue, Brown, Green, Orange, Pink, Violet. The blogger theme as well as worpress colors are easily customizable per your own requirement.
If you’re feeling good about the opportunity, what about some sort of guarantee? Something like double your adsense money or your money back…then it becomes a believable value for that sort of money.
I wouldn’t be so cruel, but its no where near as good as other premium themes out there.
I agree. I really don’t see how this is better tan other free templates.
How much said? I don’t call that optimized… but maximized LOL
Well what you said does make sense, but I will not bash (the others did already)
The template is about $100 overpriced and I think its a bit to basic looking to sell in huge amounts. I know the in text adsense block converts better than a sidebar block but it then means longer posts or no images.
I don’t like the theme. It’s overpriced, it’s too simple and I don’t think AdSense will be enhanced by using it. I don’t think, it might be, but I don’t think so.
Considering for how much you can get your own theme designed, this price tag seems to be quite steep ….
seriously , i dont see how good is this theme. I dont think it can help publisher to make get the max clicks.
It looks cheap, poorly designed and not overly well optimised. You could cannablise a free template and spend $100 on marketing - that would be a better use of money.
John’s template is optimised - this one is nasty. I’d avoid, the usability is all wrong.
It depends what you’re looking for. John’s theme is mostly about providing meaningful content, and sponsor, text-links etc. for some cash. However, if someone is looking to create a bunch of adsense sites a.k.a an adsense empire this template looks pretty good to me. Not worth the money though
Especially with the way Adsense is going… My payouts have been worryingly low lately.
This is the worst wordpress theme I ever saw in my life … It’s overpriced. Bleah …
Piece of crap.
alot of free themes are better than this. lol
Looks nice and clean but it’s really overpriced, there are other themes that are better and best, they’re free. Still, props up to the designer.
This thing is an abomination.
Stop schilling for garbage like this.
Wow, you’re one bunch of grumpy old farts.
No wonder so many bloggers fail to make any real money online. You want everything for free. Let me tell you, it takes money to buy quality, and most of you are afraid to invest an amount into YOUR OWN future, into your own website. Seeing comments like, this theme is at least $100 overpriced, just makes me wonder how many minutes of bussines experience the comenteer has. I agree that the layout price could indeed be a little lower, but still all of you are missing the point here. This is not the best design I’ve seen, but it is one of the best looking designs with so much adsense optimization. Just look at the inteligent placement of the ads, how the author is trying to lead the eye from the starting link unit which somehow appears like a navigation bar and down below the post is an adsense unit in the left side of the post. I imagine this was done precisely because of the classic style of most countries reading, where a word sentence begins on the left side of paper and continues to the right side. I for one don’t doubt in the promises of this template, that is, it should increase your adsense ctr. It surely isn’t the best looking theme in the world, but given how good the optimization is done on it, the layout is just good.
What people are trying to say is it would be very easy to modify a free theme to this in a few minutes if you have the correct experience. I fully understand what the guy is trying to achieve but I feel trying to trick users into clicking on an AdSense link will not build much trust in the long term.
If you look at past premium themes you will see a lot more effort has gone into them and even then they cost far less.
If you intent to build splogs then I have no doubt that this theme will convert but for a serious website its a no go area.
Obvious post by theme author.
nice template…
what i am looking for but it is a little pricey? But thumbs up for the designers.
Prosense from doshdosh looks so much better and its free!!!
It is a decent looking template, but I think there are other options for folks who are just getting started which are free and still optimized for AdSense, banners and widgets.
$139 is overpriced, in fact $1 is overpriced. Anyone with half a brain would know to type in “Wordpress Themes” in Google and have access to thousands of free, better looking templates than the one offered by Sensely.
They should have developed a theme with 5 different colours and offered it for about $20 then they would have maximised their return. They are simple looking for a quick buck and I bet a few bloggers with Adsense accounts wishing to do the same will stupidly buy this.
Completely agree with your opinion on pricing. Why would someone want to buy a customized adsense theme when you can get plenty of free wordpress themes with high click through rates.
The theme really doesn’t do much for me, but I would definitely like to see if they can come through on the claim of a ctr of 10%. Did they have any statistics of this claim, or was it simply an our site can generate a eleventy billion dollars type thing?
Decent design, but I still say only each webmaster can figure out where his visitors are clicking. This theme may only cater to the general public, but I wonder if each niche is different.
This template is hideous. It looks like a scraper site. KiwiPulse said it best - it’s maximized, not optimized.
comparing to what unique themes can by bought for this is not exactly cheap …
Man the first theme’s awesome. I love it
More adsense .. Means more money but it ain’t happen if my blog can’t get huge traffic..
this template is actually amazing, you guys know nothing about design! its PERFECTLY OPTIMIZED to force your eyes into looking at the google ads, I LOVE IT
They paid you $450.00 to do that review. Wow, what a colossal waste of money!
ugh i personally hate when people sell blog templates.
Google provides their own optimisation guides and a heat map, showing the recommended placements for ad units. Design/content varies, but all tips are good tips:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954
Another thing to note, is that ad blocks are served in order of their appearance within the HTML . So if you have say a left navigation or floated right column before your ‘main’ div, it may be displaying LESS RELEVANT and CHEAPER ads before your intended first ad unit, lowering your CTR.
If you’re into the whole PLR/Splog thing, the theme actually isn’t all that bad. That being said, it’s overpriced by at least $100. I’d say that a fair price for it is in the $17-$27 range. Whoever created this theme should look at the prices of these Wordpress themes (which are 100x better) and see if they still think that theirs is worth $139.
Very ugly theme, that’s the kind of theme I will never use, even if it’s free.
I have in my favorites a big collection of good make money ready wordpress themes, this is just one of them, it’s not mine, I am not a designer or coder, I found this one about a week ago, just tell me your opinion, is not a beauty? And is FREE
.
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/demos/
Do we get a box of crayons with our purchase, so we can customize the site?
But seriously…how hard is it really to add adsense to your theme anyways? Why is it such a big deal to sell adsense optimized themes? You don’t have to be a coder to mess around and add adsense to the theme, it is so simple. Test it. If it doesn’t work.. undo it and place the code some place else.
I’ve gotten a lot of comments that the template is to expensive. I didn’t think I would get such a response, since one of the beta testers made about $150 in two weeks with 300 uniques per day. As you see a very good return on investment.
I’ve adjusted the prices to meet your needs. The Price is now almost 50% of what it was before, the affiliate commissions did not change.
Let me know if there is anything else I can improve on.
these templates was nicely designed and it is adsense optimized! fantastic templates! every templates sold has its limited to how many customer? ppl will get bored if they seen many of these kind of templates, right?
Yes, I will probably stop the sales when there are enough. However this pack comes with 50 different headers and 7 different pre-installed styles (blue, brown, green, violet, orange, pink and red) so you can change the look easily with a few clicks of the button and customize your blog.
Well, It depends where come from the 300 unique visitors daily. I know million of stumblers that will never click on the ads even if you have optimized your ads. The only way to get more clicks is the get more traffics. If I buy your template, will you guarantee that I will get a return on investment?
You can always get a refund. It’s true that stumblers won’t convert as much as search engine traffic. The guy who made $150 in 2 weeks with only 300 uniques had at least 50% of the traffic coming from search engines and his blog was on finances. He said his average click is somewhere around 0.3$. I ordered this review because I am confident about the success of this theme. We’ve tested it for almost 6 months on different niches. If I weren’t so confident in the success of this theme, I wouldn’t order a review here on this blog, which has one of the toughest crowds online.
You can always get a refund. It’s true that stumblers won’t convert as much as search engine traffic. The guy who made $150 in 2 weeks with only 300 uniques per day had at least 50% of the traffic coming from search engines and his blog was on finances. He said his average click is somewhere around 0.3$. I ordered this review because I am confident about the success of this theme. We’ve tested it for almost 6 months on different niches. If I weren’t so confident in the success of this theme, I wouldn’t order a review here on this blog, which has one of the toughest crowds online.
For 0$ i get better wordpress themes than yours. No one will pay you 79$ or 2$ if they see that they could get better templates only searching on google.
Imagine how much time will take to earn $100 back with that theme… I dont know.. I’m in for the free themes always and forever!
300 visitors + 2 weeks = ..Bling Bling
Wow when I firstly opened JohnChow.com for today I saw that Sensely header and I thought John was writing something about my blog
Actually I have somehow the same template (you can check at http://www.goldposter.net)
Cheers
Olgi