i have a serious issue with my site and i was really wondering if someone could help me with it, I would appreciate any input from anyone regarding this. so here is the thing: i have a proxy site, according to Google analytics I'm getting over 150K or UV and 3.5M PV per month, but my CTR is on average 0.5%, which is extremely low and with amount of traffic that this site generate it actually costing me more money to run then I'm getting out of this. I know what you thinking, you probably thinking "site gets traffic from china" or something similar to that, the answer is no... about 70% of my visitors are coming from US and only 30% of visitors are coming from Europe and rest of the world. "smart priced"? uh.. doesn't seem like it... eCPM in Google Adsense says is not low at all. Ad placement? seems to be ok as well, i have two boxes 250x250 next to each other in the middle of the page and right under URL I have another box 468x60, all ads blends into design. -- any input is highly appreciated it thanks again
Check your logs and take the top 10 site requesting IPs from the US. Check those IPs on a reliable site (DNSstuff, something using Maxmind) and see if they are truly US. We had situations where 80%US traffic turned into 10%US and 70% Iran when switching from the free log analyzers to professional grade GeoIP info. That may not help with click-troughs, still may be worth checking. Better ad placement for click through rates, I suppose. Or Better color integration etc.
your visitors will dislike it, but you can make the homepage a landing page, they click a link which brings them to a second page with ads, and the proxy script. This would give you twice as many impressions and revenue, although it might not help the CTR. Trial and error are your best bet. Proxy Checklist - 227 ways to make a killer proxy
can I see your site ? that would help me suggest. Maybe blend the ads more. Sometimes contrast works well.