Need constructive help with adsense placement

Hi All,

My Site is: http://info.vilesilencer.com
Uniques: 3500-5000+/daily depending on update status
Alexa Rank: 10,223 (fluctuates between sub 10k and about 10,500)

I have adsense on both the site, and the forum, and the CTR generally sits on about 0.5%. Despite playing around with the adsense pretty heavily I feel like the placement (or maybe the topic of the ads) is what is causing the low interest in them.

The site did best in Adsense when I ran a skyscraper of ads down the left hand menu (I lost about half the revenue per day with its removal). However, I think it seriously impacted on the navigation of the site so I am reluctant to re-add adsense there. The site is first and foremost a free information site for directory owners/users. The adsense revenue component is second, however the revenue that it generates is what helps to keep the site completely free.

Any help with the current placement on both the forum and the site itself will be greatly appreciated. I'm also clueless as to where to place it on the blog that is also part of the site, so I haven't included it there yet.

 

Take off the "advertise on this site" link on the google ads. It can be done thru the google adsense panel. It will make your ads look less like ads and bring your CTR up. Best of luck to you

 

Thanks Judd, I wasn't aware that could be removed. I'll let you know how it goes

 

As far as your forum goes, you may want to add a leaderboard or link unit ads between the posts (like you see here on DP).

On your homepage you might try putting in a banner just under your long grey bar and next to the navigation (where your update header is now) and just move the header down under the ads.

You could also put ads somewhere in the text and wrap the text around it.

Hope this helps

 

I have tried the same ad style that DP uses. Does clicking on those link units count as a click though? because it takes you to a page with a list of google links. What happens if the user leaves after reaching that page?

Thanks for the other ideas I'll ponder on them

 

I am not sure if it is counted as a click through or not when they click the link units. I do know that you do not get paid unless they click on one of the ads on the page that comes up.

 

Ok. Well basically what I had was the same line of link unit ads as DP has here, I played around with after the first post, and after the last post, and it never did very well, so i switched it to a leaderboard after the last post.

I'm not too sure if the placement of that style of ad will affect the CTR too much though as the majority of forum regulars are going to be very savvy SEO-types who will subsconciously block the ads out, being as used to them as they are.