Remove Adsense?

[Idris]

I've been using Adsense for a while now (my reports go back to 2004). The pages it's on are hobby-ish, but I've been able to make ~$10 a day in the past (which was reasonable really and was a good base to build upon).

In recent months though this has died back (It fell with others in late 2007). A good day now will be $2.00+ though more often than not it's below $1.

Page impressions haven't changed too much (if anything they're growing slightly as I put more effort in improving page design and structure). I have dropped Adsense from some pages, however I've also worked to try and place Adsense blocks more prominently to try and boost CTR.

It's getting frustrating checking every day or so and seeing little improvement.

Is it worth leaving Adsense where it is and just focusing on page development or should I be considering removing it altogether (remove adsense and wait to see if the pages become big enough to warrant selling private ad spots, things like small button banners for a fixed price).

Should I be working to improve ad placement to inject life into flagging performance (as things stand I'm looking at around 5K impressions a day with a CTR of around 0.20%). Is it worth putting Adsense in more obvious places if it's only going to get a few more clicks?

[htdawg]

If its still making you some money I would just leave it in and focus on building up your content etc.. be patient and you will see better results in the long run.

[Idris]

Should I be looking to alter ad placements (unfortunately traffic building looks like a slow process as there's a fairly low total niche traffic limit and pretty strong competition).

I've followed the Adsense heatmap loosely, however ads tend to be based around the design rather than in key areas.

Typical stats for my two bigger groups of pages are around 2,500 impressions with a CTR of 0.20 and 1,500 impressions with a CTR of 0.10.

These aren't article based unfortunately (they tend to be image heavy with limited text) but it would help to have a slightly higher CTR (perhaps around 1%?).

[ecmedia]

Let me be honest. You really don't have a "business" so till you figure out a way to monetize in other ways leave AdSense there. You also need to create more text based content that is useful to readers in ways that they would want to buy something -- that is what leads to better ads and higher CTR. 0.2% is simply pathetic. I am also of the opinion that as you create better content your traffic will improve.

[Jean]

These aren't article based unfortunately (they tend to be image heavy with limited text)

and that' the source of your low CTR. Your solution is either to add plenty of text content or have a HUGE amount of traffic which is the only way to monetize image pages with AdSense. First option may be easier to achieve.

[Pepito]

That’s true, you need to have a HUGE traffic for a only image site, and that is very difficult because you need to add new images practically every week in order to your visitors come back again to see updates.
After years of having only images, thousands and thousands, site I am going to change it radically and add text.

[Idris]

The problem is that there's not that much scope for adding in articles (as things stand it's taking all of my limited time to just add new content to the existing pages).

Would adding Wordpress blogs help to address the text issue (semi frequent posts relating to the content on the existing pages and expanding on the images to help foster strong adverts), funnelling traffic from existing pages to it to try and increase revenue?

[Pepito]

The same happens to me. It is impossible to find time to do additional thinks apart of adding more and more images.
What I have decided is in July to stop updating my site and concentrate in my new site with both images and text. That it could take me around a year to update everything but I think is worth to try it. I am sure that my traffic will increase as well as revenues.

[Pepito]

Idris,

Another think that you can do is to find a partner, better if is a friend, to be in charge of the text part of your site. You can share your revenues with him, for example, or he/she can add some Adsense. At the end both of you will gain with the increase of traffic.