I own a graphic design forum, it's 1 year old already and it's going pretty well so far, I have active members and staff, recently I tried to add adsense to it and honestly I am not really happy with it, I have a lot of pageviews and very low CTR, I was wondering, what am I doing wrong. I integrated a google search instead of normal search for guests, put a banner on the top of the page and an ad links unit in every first post. Please help I almsot forgot to give you my forum link http://www.tech-gfx.net
Forum members are ad blind, so a forum with good traffic equates to a high impression rate with a crappy click through rate. So you are normal there and are doing nothing wrong. Try changing your ad locations now and again, or at least their format. People notice change, and will give temporary spikes on CTR.
Check out: Forum Ad Placement Tips If you rummage around in google help, you'l find another version of it as well. But it does not stop there, actually change your ads now and again. It's the change that keeps them in the minds eye without being ignored. Swap them out with affiliate ads. Change them from text ads to image ads to text link ads. And change them weekly...
other then your affiliates I nearly missed your ads....I suggest adding in a banner or half banner to the guest box... that way it's unobtrusive to your members and you'll get higher impressions and likely CTR.
Yeah a banner would help, or maybe even text ads after the first post. (But maybe it would annoy some members, check to see if there's a mod. to make it only visible to guests). BTW I like your forum skin