i've read that to improve CTR you should NOT make your ads appear as if part of your site - so that they stand out. I personally don't like the idea of this, as google ads are so damn ugly. needs must though, i'm afraid, if it's a proven method of increasing clicks.
placement + formats + colorscheme see http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=228283 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=237454 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=178570 7000 us/d should give you around 70 us$/d anything less is result of lack of study of published tips search forum learn from those who really are successful ( successful = many k$/m and ctr around 2 digits ! ) there are several here in DP forum.
You can try different ads placement and colors. Blending could improve the things a bit. Depending on your auditory 1-2% CTR could be the maximum.
Sometimes it's just the niche. My site (in my sig) has a fairly low ctr. Google has manually reviewed it and I got compliments on the layout. *shrug* My readers are web savvy and suspicious of advertising.
If you are constantly getting a banner add picture of something that really isnt gonna get your visitors clicking then block it. Although they are targeted and you may block it for your area only. But ask others to view your site and see what they see. Recently i blocked habbo 1. Cause they pissed me off 2. Cause no one clicks habbo as its everywhere
as everyone says, try different ad placement and bending the ad with your site layout. but sometimes depending on the niche, that might no do yoy any good. if that doens;t help, adsense is not for your site and try to find some other program. affiliate program if possible
If you can get me $130 per day from my 13,000 uniques per day I'll give you $200 cash through Paypal.
Better content ,batter Ad placement with better color blend.Make ads appear after the post title as in my blog.USe same size and color as in my blog you will definitely see the improvement.
question: since you recommend blending how much is your ctr site wide with that technique ? I have implemented a STRICT NON-blending colorscheme ( s. sig links ) after extensive testing ( 200 channels, 300 hrs testing with ten thousands of uv ) a little more than a year ago. with 15'000+ uv/d from 210+ countries in languages fr, en, es, de I achieve an average ( first 3 months 2008 ) of 8-10% ctr across a wide number of different topics. can you do any better using blending ? if yes how much better ??
2007 I had 4736197 uv resulting in 46+k US$ the idea of ME doing YOUR work and you earning ten thousands more for a 200 $ tip is fine BUT you have to learn to do your job yourself if you want to earn real money ! all my experiences, color-schemes etc are published in very detail ( in threads linked as well as in my blog ) and still in use on my entire site. up to you to read and CAREFULLY and correctly implement ALL important factors published to be successful! if a few thousand or ten thousand $ MORE revenue / yr isn't worth YOUR several hundred hours of heavy ADDITIONAL work - how then could that work be worth a little tip to me ? it's your life = your future = your success OR failure. outsourcing the work to keep the profit is no solution to happiness - all I can do for u is to publish my detailed recipe for my own success. that's what i have done already.