I've had adsense running for about six months on one of my sites that offers downloads for an open source computer game. The site is http://stepmaniathings.com and it's pretty well-established now. I'm getting over 2,000 page impressions and about 900 unique visitors every day, but my average CTR is less than a fifth of a percent. Granted, my visitors really all fall into two categories: one being people that browse the site looking for new and interesting downloads (probably clicking the advertisements as well), and the other being people linked to a single page with a download link on the site from somewhere else. My question to the DP community is: How can I increase my CTR for visitors that are probably only going to visit one page of my site and are probaby going straight for the download link?
You need to blend the colour of the ad to match your page. Maybe put the download button below the ad rather than beside it Good luck Notting
sorry, must be blind.... Ok, as already mentioned integrate the colours so the text fits in. Also maybe put the leaderboards at the top of the page where they will get more attention rather than the little ones you have at the moment. Some of them aren't centred either, centre them to make them stand out a bit more. As usual set up up some channels so you can see the relative performance between what you change to.
Get rid of the Firebox banner. It's really ugly. Other than that, make your navigational links more prominent and easier to click on. Right now it feels like you're hiding them up there in their tiny slots. I bet a lot of your new visitors just miss them completely. And as the others said, blend your ad colors to conform to your site's yellow design. Beyond those things, I'm not sure if there's really a whole lot you can do. Download sites, like game sites, are known for notoriously low CTR.