Ad Placement and color scheme suggestions

Hey there,
I've had my blog open for about a month now, and I've been constantly fiddling with the ad placement and colors. I'm still not satisfied with my CTR though (less than 1%). I get about 500 impressions a day, give or take. I've read about placement and color, checked out the heat map and everything.

Right now, I've got a leaderboard right under my site navigation, a sidebar, and an ad unit right after the first post. I'm testing 6 different configurations for the ad unit after the post, the medium rectangle and banner in different color schemes.

I guess the only thing I haven't done is ask for feedback from people, so here I am in the forums.

Could you please take a moment to look at my blog and let me know if you have any suggestions for me? I'd really appreciate it. And if you want feedback on your own web pages, I'd be happy to give my opinion in return.

http://www.basugasubakuhatsu.com/blog/

 

Hmmm. Should I take the lack of feedback to mean that my site is looking good? My CTR is sorta up, but it could still be a lot better. I appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

 

My suggestion is to place the biggest rectangle after the title of your first entry and before the text of that entry. Try it out.

 

I'm new at this too so you'll have to take my opinions with a grain of salt...

The first thing I noticed is that your ads do not seem to be well targeted for the site content. An example would be the "Get laid in Ohio" ad that was displayed for me, I don't think that appeals to your target audience...but I may be wrong.

I do like the blending of the ads on the top of the page under the navigation bar though. The blending is very nice but perhaps you could try just the textual ads in their place instead of the leaderboard.

That's all I got, hope it helps!

 

Hmm, that might be kinda hard with the blog system I have, but I might try to get that to work.

 

Get laid in Ohio!? Hmmm, I've never seen that ad. Are you in Ohio? Maybe it's a geo-directed ad. Too bad I can't click on my own ads... Anyway, I've found the leaderboard is one of my best performers.

At this point, if it works decently enough, I guess I shouldn't break it, eh?

 

Only you know what works for you so if the leaderboard is working I wouldn't touch it either.

And yes I am in Ohio...was very tempted to click but didn't think it was a good idea seeing as how I'm at work...Maybe when I get home

 

remove the borders!!!

they look far too much like ads, you should try and blend them in more

 

Ok, done. Personally, I think they look nicer with no borders, but I guess the point is not to make them look nice...

Hopefully this'll help the CTR go up. Thanks for all your suggestions.

 

One last thing -- you still have a lot of ads about blogs and blogging. It's time to implement AdSense section targeting in your WordPress theme; this will reduce the number of blogging ads (which virtually nobody clicks).

 

Using adsense logger (or the equivalent plugin for wordpress) I noticed that most clicks were for blogging stuff. Kinda weird, but I think until I get more search engine traffic, I'll keep the blog ads.

I had disabled most of them with the ad filter, but I figure if people are going to click them, I might as well get the most per click.

Once I get more search engine traffic that's relative to my blog's theme, I'll try to get rid of the blog ads again.