I have two sites, first one has good content, the second one is only a product listing. The first one has 1000 pageviews a day,but only has 5 clicks, the second one has 200 pagevies a day,but has 15 clicks. So I found it's hard to make money from good content sites. What do you think?
I am willing to bet it is a problem with your site, rather than a generality. Post the URLs here - perhaps we can pinpoint some factors...
Is the good content site a web/internet/seo/technology site? I noticed on my sites, I get more clicks on my websites about where i went to school, the place where i live, my personal blog and others. And my main site on Web/Internet/SEO/Technology does not get clicks at all. Very rare but has high traffic because of the content. My guess is because audience of my technology site are also the people that can easily distiguish an ad.
hotpop, That sounds similar to my situation. The CTR on my major content site is about 1%, sometimes less. I also have a 1 page site with one search term that gets a much better CTR but few visits. The quandry is, not too many people will ever visit my 1-page 1-kw site, as it really isn't that useful. The content site is quite helpful, and I even use it myself a few times a day. Of course, those users have better things to find there than the ads...so the CTR is low (but hopefully well targeted). My personal belief is to put my efforts into promoting the content site, as this is where true growth can take place. If 1k visitors = 5 clicks, great...what will 20k visitors give? Of course placement, etc. can help as well, but the true long term rewards will come from providing content that adds to the value of your site and the internet as a whole.
As others have said, it's about site type, content and traffic. You need all 3 to really make the best amount of money - Great site but no content or traffic = no money, Great content but no one cares and there's no traffic = no money, great traffic but no one cares about the site type, and it has no content = MFA = no money. You might try targetting some other, more popular keywords or expanding your content a bit to reach a better audience.
What most people forget is that good content sites have more returning visitors, so the percentage of ad blindness is higher. It's also foolish of you to automatically conclude that good content sites make less money than medium/low content sites, because you totally ignore other important factors like; - ad placement - how related are the ads to the content - site design - ads blending - number of ads - the kind of content of your site. Forums for example do lot less than regular sites. Game sites also pay less. etc.
What I've found is, if you are getting good traffic, that's great, even if you get no clicks. Keep working on that site, and eventually you will find a way to monetize it. With some topics the clicks come easy, and with others you have to work at them, but if there is traffic, there is the potential for money, even if you haven't worked out the solution yet. Maybe it is ad placement, or ad colour, or ad type, or maybe an affiliate program would work better, or ebay, or something else. But traffic WILL result in money if you can just work out what these people would like to buy. On my pages about ASP.NET I had a lot of traffic but about 1 click per month. I experimented and have now got this up to 0.x% CTR, and I think that I can go even higher with a bit more work. But the good thing is that topics where it is difficult to get people to click often have high values per click.
I agree. With traffic, it's just a matter of testing different ad formats, placing etc to make it work. I've many new sites, and sometimes the sand box can be rather discouraging. No traffic = no money
I think a "content" site can probably do well if you place your ads at the end of your articles. Sites that lack content probably get better CTR, cuz there's nothing for the visitor to do but click the ads, but you risk getting banned as an MFA, and its not worth the effort in my opinion.
I think you can really make a lot of money with an MFA....... if they would never get banned. But here is something I noticed is a blog of a friend i have where i know he makes good money from Adsense.... I noticed he has no adsense on his main page, but just like what akamaimommie said... He only has it there and no place else. I think one reason why he does not have it on the homepage is because the ads sometimes are irrelevant to the story where it is placed. Since a blog homepage can have various topic post and the ads are just so varied.
I have ads at the end of content articles but I don't get a high click through rate. I do get a lot of returning visitors. I have a dilemma about ad placement. I would hate it to intrude on the page and get in the way of the content but at the same time I think the ads need better placement or a different colour scheme. How do others deal with this on high content sites?
The problem with content sites is that there is a lot of competition. That is why you get fewer visitors
Blend your ads at the top of your articles, you can place whether a square (250 x 250), medium rectangle (300 x 250) or large rectangle (336 x 280) in the right side of your article's first paragraph to improve your Adsense performace. you can do it as simple as this: TITLE OF YOUR ARTICLE <div style="float:right; padding:5px;"> ADSENSE CODE HERE </div> ARTICLE'S BODY Code (markup):