Help. low CTR on forum

Hi, I recently started my first forum and am getting around 150 uniques daily. (check the forum link in sig). My problem is a very very very low CTR although I'm not sure if its standard for forums to have such a low rate. While my other sites have a CTR of 4-5%, my forum has a CTR of 0.16%, meaning that I'm hardly generating any revenue from this forum.

I have 2 questions

1 - What is the standard CTR of a forum? Is 0.16 a good forum rate or not?
2 - Can you please have a look at the site (link in sig) and tell me if you see something that could be causing this low rate? My ads blend in well, and i'm worried the blending is actually harmful cause they could be being missed.

Anyway, thanks for reading all this. Any advice is appreciated since I'm busting my arse trying to promote this forum and its very disheartening to have such a low memberbase and very low revenue

 

although 0.16% is a bit low, the problem is that forums indeed have low CTR's. some forums get to a ctr of 0.5% but a lot higher is not often found. It's because forums are visited by frequent visitors who dont see the ads after a short time anymore.

The place of your ads is important, but yes, it is hard!

 

Yes, forums in general have a very low CTR. You can improve on the placement of your ads though. Try putting them elsewhere on the site, why not include them in the lists of posts, my forum is getting a CTR of around 1%, I'm fairly sure it's mainly down to the ad placement.

 

Get rid of the "Advertise on this Site" link

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1077875&postcount=5

 

what do you mean include them in the lists of posts? I cant understand were would that be

 

just did this but the link is still showing...do i have to replace the code?

 

Take a look here,
http://www.amdiva.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2

 

that looks good although
1 it will take me some time to figure how to do it
2 does it violate TOS?

 

No, just give it time to update

 

thanks for your help

 

anyone thinks that maybe I should change their colour and make them stand out?

 

There's probably a tutorial posted somewhere for the software you're using

Not AFAIK, I've not checked directly with Google but I can't see any reason why it would be.

 

It might be an idea to change the general colour scheme of the forums as a whole. Somthing that gives some more contrasting colours. This will help you pick out the ads more while letting them still blend into the site.