We run a news and commentary site from Israel on the Middle East. We currently have about 5,000 pageviews/day, which I know is not a great amount, but should be enough to monetize. However, with Adsense, despite the fact we are getting well over 100 clicks/day, we are making well under $20/day. Each click is worth a very, very small amount - which I have heard is common with politics and religion sites, since the content does not draw ads on tangible products. So my question is - on a politics site with 5,000 pageviews/day (2-3,000 visitors), what is the best way to monetize our traffic? Oh, for those interested, the site is www.jnewswire.com
Your ads are not in a very good location. On the home page, you only have one small ad at the bottom. Try changing the positions of the ads on your pages. Place the home page ads closer to the top of the page. The ads on your article pages are also on the right hand side. One of the first places people look when coming to a website is the left, where the links normally are on a site. Place your ads on that side, and you should see an increase. Also, your normal links on your site are red. The ad links are blue. People will know these are ads, and may not click on them. Try changing the ad link colour to the same red as your normal links, to blend the ads into your content. Both of these practices should result in an increase in CTR. The main thing to keep in mind is that practice makes perfect. Keep playing with ad placement and you should see some results.
$20 from a politics site with 100 clicks is excellent. I would have thought it would be more like $10.