I've tried 336x280 ads in the content text and images, 728 banners, and now I'm trying ad link blocks at the top. This site gets about 100-150 unique visitors a day and not alot of clicks. It's very frustrating. Is it my template? Maybe suggest a better placement? My colors? This is the only site I own with less than a 1.5% CTR and I'd be happy with a 0.3-0.5 CTR to be honest. Just something. Thanks http://www.JunkyPC.com
I usually give an opposite advice, but in your case I think it might work. You need banner ads. I do not like banner ads, but in your case it could be a good thing. Put a 160X600 banner on the right hand side (between Recent Posts and Categories), put a 728X90 banner ad instead of the lower link unit and center it, and then put one 300X250 TEXT ad right below the top article title and the posting date. That 300X250 will stick out a little, but that's what you want. The banner ads will look really nice since the tones of your site are a bit subdued. Try it for a week, see if it works.
I would attack this site different but the best advice is split test TEXT ads vs IMAGE ads. Atleast 1000 impression per ad change and record the CTR. I really like the link ads you have at top, I would keep it like it is. My suggestion would be use a TEXT ad (336x280) in the sidebar right under your Google Search box and also a (336x280) within the post, align to the right. Split test this with images ads as states above and report back. (TEXT ads usually perform better than IMAGE ads, in my testes) GL buddy!
Actually I recommend leaving just 1 link ad at the top, remove the link ad closer to your post...it should bring the ads that is within the post and sidebar just a tab bit higher at eye level or center of page.
Just saw it, looking great. Can't wait to hear if it will reap some good results. With up to 150 unique visitors a day, your site should be making about $8-10 a day. Try to also promote it on backpage.com. Sign up for a free account and post ads in the biz opps category. You can title your ads something like: Solutions to your PC problems. Or something similar. Just an idea. Maybe you are already there.
I'll be honest with you, with 8000 visitors a day, I would be making $150-$300 a day easily. Eventually, I should get to that point. Currently, I range between 300-400 visitors a day. I think the earnings depend on 4 factors: your niche, how targeted your ads are, ads' location and your visitors. Some niches are really profitable. In his case, I saw a Verizon ad on one of the pages. That ad alone can get you $2-$3 a click. But ads have to be targeted. That's why it is important to have keywords in each article or description that will make ads relevant to that article and to what the visitor is looking for. Thirdly, ads HAVE to be visible. I hear a lot about blending ads. It's ok to blend the color of the links to the color of the links of your site, but it is not ok to place ads somewhere where nobody can see them. Ads have to stick out if you want to earn from them. There's no other way around it. And of course the IP addresses of your visitors will determine what ads will show up and how much they will yield. The North American/UK/EU visitors are more desirable because that's where the money is.
This just goes to show that different sites with the same traffic will get wildly different earnings. I have two niches - one is very low value niche. The ads are targetted quite well, I've got the CTR up as high as I think it can go, and the site with the highest PR does occasionally have $20 days. The other niche is high paying, in the order of $3-15 a click, but it is a forum full of nerds that ignore ads so most days I have no clicks at all. None of my sites are made for adsense and it really shows However, I'm working on a side project and I need some high-traffic sites in the right demographic to launch it, so I'm more interested in building up traffic right now than adsense earnings.