I want to improve the ad placement for my cooking site. I am using 3 ad units and 1 link unit already on the site, but want suggestions for improving the placement and earning. Looking forward to your suggestions.
your adlink is in the perfect place. i would suggest moving your 336 block & replacing the 120*60 with the 336. In addition, it might pay to change your color scheme of your menu & other site links to blue [0000FF] & then changing your headline of your adsense to blue[0000FF] as well. Blue has a long history on the net, as the color of links/anchor text. And it seems to increase CTR abit.
I personally recommend the "less is more" approach, especially with your type of site. It is probably unsettling for someone going for cooking tips to see "Ads by Google" everywhere they looked. As soon as they click on a link -- BAM! Three Google ads are right there in their face. Very, very unattractive for a site that should appeal to feminine aesthetics. The first thing that you should get rid of, if just for aesthetic purposes, is the adlinks on the top left corner. It really "uglies" up the site, don't you think, just sitting there above your menu? I would keep the half banner at the top (how is it performing for you) and then make the decision to get rid of either the 336 at the bottom or the skyscraper. I don't think you need both, and if anything, they really clash and clutter up the place. The thing to keep in mind is this: if the current ad placement isn't performing as you like, then what's the harm in changing them up for at least a week to see if there is any improvement?
Thank you for your suggestions Jack and dreamedia. The whole idea of putting the 120 x 60 ad there is to prevent the Google ads from appearing everywhere on the page, just as Jack mentioned. Also, Blue is not a color that should be on a cooking site, so I'm not sure if I should be changing that. I actually re-did this site a few months ago, the older version was in mambo / joomla and was surely more attractive than this one. Heres a screenshot of the older version...