Check my ads for me? Suggestions?

Hi, we're running a relatively small forum and I'm running Google Ads to help cover the costs of hosting it. I just thought I'd ask for the suggestions of how to improve the revenue it's generating, from those who know what works and what doesnt! I know forums aren't the best for generating revenue with ads, but at the moment it's all we've got.

Thanks in advance!

www .scale4x4rc.org/forums

 

Personally I wouldn't put the 2 referral buttons up there, but that's just me.

I think that if you make the border of your ads the same color as your background, people might not notice the "Ads by Goooogle" part as much.

EDIT: www.scale4x4rc.org/forums link for lazy people

 

Ok, that makes since. Looks nicer too. Anything else that might help?

 

Look at it now, I've added just a small text link referral after removing the buttons, blended the large ad better, and added a link unit to the navigation menu that's blended to that as well. I did that last night and already today my CTR is up. Still not high but higher than it was. It may just be a coincidense too though, it's still to soon to tell. lol I'll leave it like this a few days and see what it does.

 

I think it's kind of cluttered with everything at the top, but if your CTR is up, then I guess my opinion doesn't matter

 

I agree, it looks a little cluttered up top, but my thougt was that with the ads at the top, the regular members who frequent the forum can scroll right past them and get an un-interupted view of the actual content they are there for. That whole "ad after the first or second post" thing doesn't strike me as too user friendly, although I'm pretty sure it would help intice some extra clicks, but I don't want to have to go that low.

I'm not trying to make a living at this, just trying to get the forum to the point that it pays for itself. A group of us that started it have been running it for a couple of years now and so far it hasn't cost us anything, but that was thanks to donations form a number of core members.

 

in general forums have bad ctr but your looks pretty good.

I'd delete the "Browse the web faster. Get Firefox with Google Toolbar"

cause I doubt people at a car forum will give a hoot at what browser they use, those never pay or convert well anyways

some forums have some script where it automatically puts ads under the first post, consider this

good luck

 

I've cleaned them up a bit more, and teh CTR is still up. I guess that the extra clicks the little link unit was getting vs. the jump in page impressions was balancing out, if not hurting our overall revenue. With only one simple ad it seems to be doing well actually. Thanks for the tips!