Hi guys, I've tried a couple of things; from Amazon Ads at the bottom of every page to an AdSense large-rectangle next to the first post in each topic. Nothing seems to be really helping and I need to change that as hosting is beginning to become expensive. What have you guys tried before that has worked? The forum has 306 members and gets between 2,000 and 9,000 pageviews a day. Can you help?
You need a decent traffic, an organic traffic probably. Optimize ads that blends with the color of the site. A fast loading forum. A Forum with a nice purpose and a keyword optimize page for your Adsense.
Majority of clickers are just passing through. It's hard, and it's not-recommended to get members to click on ads. Especially when it's only <1000. I recommend building search engine traffics. Oh, u get 2000-9000 pageviews a day? Try Pay Per Impression Ads. You may get link $100/day easily displaying about 5 PPI ads each paying about $5-10/1000 views Good luck.
If you manage to find stores that sell guitars and guitar equipment you could negotiate with them and have some of their offers listed in your online store forum section for example. You could negotiate a commission for every sale you make through your online store on the forum.
Try affiliate programs. There are some online guitar lesson membership that offer affiliate programs.