Enhancement of power conversion efficiency has been a long-term objective for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). In the current work, mesoporous TiO2 anodes are synthesized by a gel-hydrothermal method using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a pore-forming agent in order to elevate the dye loading, incident light illumination for dye excitation as well as electron transportation along conducting channels from TiO2 nanoparticles. In comparison with dense TiO2 anode, the dye illumination is also significantly enhanced, resulting in an increased photoelectron density on conduction band of TiO2. The photovoltaic performances are optimized by adjusting PVP dosage in synthesizing mesoporous TiO2 anode. An impressive power conversion efficiency of 9.86% is recorded under one sun illumination. The power conversion efficiency is increased by similar to 53.8% in comparison with the dense TiO2 anode based DSSC. The high conversion efficiency in combination with simple preparation demonstrates the potential use of the approach in designing efficient DSSCs. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.