Ad Placement tips?

[robsynnott]

Hey, I know it's been asked many times before, but how does this ad placement sound?

I have a content-oriented site with a header, then a body of text with a skyscraper at the left, and (depending on the page) a banner at the base. My users tend to stay on the site a while, and a lot of them revisit. They don't look at the ads too much tho; CTR hovers around 0.9%. And, it's a lowpaying subject. Ad colours are fairly bland and blend in with the background. So, are there any obvious improvements I can make? :)
Rob.

[skunker]

Well Rob, first of all do not display your CTR, that is against Google's TOS. However, your CTR is the same as mine, so we are in the same boat. I also have the same placement as you, so no wonder we have the same CTR.

We need to increase it.

[bts111]

There was a post written by Jenstar earlier this week that metioned adsense hot spots.

I am very interested in reading some info in relation to these hot spots.

Has the hotspot info been posted?

I am sure that this will help you.

[ken_b]

It sometimes helps if you can wrap the article around the adblock. But even then, I'd go for having the ad as close to the end of the article as possible.

Once they've read the article, they're going somewhere. If there isn't something else on your site that they want to read, then you might as well have an ad there for their consideration.

[incrediBILL]

Putting it on the bottom is a leap of faith that people will ever get that far, if in fact they get half way down the page before they bail.

Move the leaderboard to the top, right above the content.

You may see a 30%-50% jump in CTR.

[Emmett]

Put it where ever the eyes naturally drift to.

Lots of whitespace helps too.

I like using normal site colors for the ads too, if its visually loud they will notice it but they probably don't want to stare long enough to read it. Just my opinion.

[universetoday]

Use one of the big square blocks - 250x250 or even the larger one, and centre it in the middle of your page with whitespace on either side. Give it a blending colour to the rest of your website. I think you'll be pleased with the improvement in CTR.