So check out my site: http://www.mensweekly.net I'm getting a little over 100k page views/month but barely making anything through Adsense b/c of my ridiculously low CTR. I don't know what's wrong or what to do. I know if my CTR shot up to around 2% or so that I would make a pretty nice amount of $ every month. Can you guys give me some tips or tell me what I'm doing wrong? I'm thinking about trying Chitka and see if that helps. Thanks!
I'm not well versed with the mens interest niche, but I want to say that this content attracts only visitors interested in reading for pleasure. That is, your content attracts people who only want to spend some free time getting some laughs, looking at hot chicks, and checking out the latest gadgets. They don't have any specific questions that need answered, and are not interested in buying anything. That's why they don't click on anything. So, what you want to do is monetize on a CPM basis. Maybe try Casale network, or ValueClick, or sell ads directly.
I can give you advice, but the problem for me is you, ie. you will impose your filter and not follow exactly what i say, because blablabla. I know it's normal you want to have your say even when you shouldn't, but i don't care anyway, that's why I'll keep it short and succint: delete the two 468x60 ads. you then only keep the big one on the right from your current ad placement. for article pages, put 2 300x250 ad blocks side by side, where currently is the 468x60, that is before the text content. Then also add a google search form to your right column, and make use of adsense links. Ok for now you'll not do it anyway.
Just a couple suggestions... 1) Try filtering your AdSense ads to show only text-based ads and not images. 2) I would recommend larger ad units, check out the video below from the Inside AdSense blog, it's about optimizing your AdSense ad units and I think it really pertains to your site... [video=youtube;Lfgzxa_BNrY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfgzxa_BNrY[/video] Good Luck