Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My website is served ads with pretty good relevance to the content.
[edited by: jatar_k at 10:43 pm (utc) on July 13, 2006]
I'm a fan of clean sites - as much as possible
That may be the rub. I know that I stuck to the same long leaderboard ad that you are using to keep my content free of the ad clutter, until I realized how much more effective the wide skyscraper column and the long rectangle units within the content were than what I had been doing.
Thanks to the channels you can experiment and get a good sense if a new tweak is working or not.
Your CTR is pretty low for a content site so I would really try different ad units in different layouts.
Try this adsense heat map & see the difference!
[google.com...]
With all due respect, while your site design is quite nice and your content is informative, I don't believe that you've integrated AdSense into the site very effectively.
You are primarily showing referrals, which for a low traffic site, are probably not going to earn you that much.
The large image banner ads at the top of the pages are primarily showing (for whatever reason) more Google referrals and on one page... Public Service Ads that you don't get paid for.
The only functional contextual ads you've incorporated are the AdLinks just under the title. Those links appear to have relative ads, however, it has been shown that AdLinks aren't effective on some sites and they do require two clicks instead of just one. Text block ads intermixed with your articles will probably serve you much better.
Your best bet would be check out the Google heatmap (ad placement recommendations and examples) here:
[google.com...]
Overall I think your site has the potential to be a good earner especially if you keep adding quality content and continue to get traffic referrals from other sites. At this point you just need to put the same effort into AdSense integration as you did in site design.
Chapman
1. Move the leaderboard and place it where your horizontal AdLinks is or with a 468 x 60.
Why? As soon as one arrives at the page the eye scans down for the "meat & directions" and dismisses the leaderboard ads. Placing it inbetween header nav and information will give your visitors much longer to see the ads as they read down the page.
2. Use an AdLinks block preferably just above your lefthandside navigation or in its own blended box between the nav and log-in box.
Let us know how it goes.
I would also kill the AdBrite and replace that with a vertical AdSense ad unit.
Given your subject matter and the fact that you are providing original content you should be converting at FAR better than 0.5%. That's okay for community-based forum sites but not for a content-rich site like yours.
Follow the advice others have mentioned here and in a week you'll likely be back here in agreement.
I would also kill the AdBrite
Good comment Paris!
I forgot I had I wanted to mention that but in the terms of questioning whether there had ever been a final consensus as to whether Adsense and Adbrite could be on the same page.
The last thread I saw seemed to be leaning toward NO. I don't use Adbrite so I don't follow those threads very closely.
Chapman
I would also kill the AdBriteGood comment Paris!
Let's have a "me too" agreement:-)
