Hi, I was running a blog and my traffic gave me a very low ctr (0.05%) the site in mention is pown.us . I am planning on working alot more on it so I want my work to be more worthwhile. I have made a couple of designs playing around on flash please vote for the one you think has the best ctr but not too overwhelming. Layout 1: http://picoo.co.uk/images/fa6df1dc17422252adce505fcef73d1a.jpg Layout 2: http://picoo.co.uk/images/edb16d7966c158e1862993ed467c0285.jpg Layout 3: http://picoo.co.uk/images/e7535ffebe1964f61a6b30cb9af868e8.jpg For Layout Three the images at the top will be for nagivation around the sight.
I think the layout used by this blog has been proven to be the best one for Adsense so far. Apart from that its hard to tell. I would probably go for number 2 just because I can imagine what it would look like.
@mightb I think the key word in your first sentence is "so Far" also I dont want to be like the hundreds of other sites with that theme. Shmoe
Number 2 would be my vote from the options that you've listed but it's still not the ideal positioning for a good user experience and high clicks. ProBlogger has a series called 'Tactics to Increase Your AdSense Earnings Overnight' - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/09/tactics-to-increase-your-adsense-earnings-overnight/ which you should have a look at.
You should really reconsider the number of ads on any of these templates. Users hate adverts. If yours get too annoying, over 10% of people will just block the adverts. 3 is too many adsense blocks if you are going to have affilitate links as well. Also as everyone seems to be into SEO at the moment (making random guessing at possible filters and website properties used for ranking) here is my guess: Google knows that people spam google for a reason. This reason is nearly always money from advertisments. I do not see why google can not rank websites with less adverts higher as they are less likely to be spam.
I'm just starting a new blog, and am using this theme. As for the 3 options, definately the third one!