So I am wondering where I should start with my site http://inventgeek.com The site has been up for a couple years. I have a very loyal user base. And lots of third party publication of my work stuff. But the bulk of my traffic comes from mass Slashdot and dig onslaughts monthly as we release new project articles. I have had Google ads up for the whole time as well. But as time goes on it seems that my earnings are going down. Now im below 500 a month and not super happy about it. Page impressions 6k daily between articles / 50-100K daily on publish days tapering off. Page CTR 1.86 between articles. Page eCPM [?] 2.60 between articles. Thoughts anyone?
nice projects you go there I would advise you to go check the heat map in the G's help pages and move some ads around for example you might get better CTR if you move the sky-ads from right to left also move the AdLink unit on the top either above or below the search box with AdSense testing is the key. different visitors have different habbits
change the position of the ads, put them in the middle of the content, on the left side, look at this example from google (first image): https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/Inline.html
May be you have already tried that, but I would recommend affiliating with thinkgeek.com Just start making pages for some of their projects in the same style and include an "available now" sticker on the main page. So then people can go and buy. Hell if you have an interesting geek product you can even find a way to mass produce it and sell it through thinkgeek Good luck!
if you put a 336x280 ad at the top of your center column your money would go way up. try it for a day and see. as it is now your ads aren't very visible
Just a tip, don't ever disclose your CTR and eCPM. It's highly confidential information & not allowed to disclose according to Adsense TOS.
Did you ever try any affiliate programs? Normally you can make much more money with them. adsense pays only cents.
First off thanks for all your input... Michelangelo, affiliate programs - i had tried adbright once. but google penalized me so hard for using them as well that i bailed. i havent tried to much along the line of formal affiliates because it would also be viewed as endorsing or supporting a product or site… and really I don’t have many that I would want to with. sufi, the CTR and eCPM I mentioned are only representative..... qardinal, pozer, pixad, I have intentionally avoided reformatting the site with that as the main drive of the site... but i realize that i need to find a more happy medium... the problem is the length of the articles and the number of pictures. any thoughts on a format that would accommodate this?