a summarize of adsense tips on improving performance

[catchmeifucan]

Any Guru here can give a summation on how to improve adsense performance?

what is the best working format? skyscaper, leaderboard?
How many do you put on your page? two, three? four?
Which part performs best? right hand side skyscaper? leaderboard in the middle? or what?
Do yu agree the CTR range below?
3-5% poor
5-8% O.K
8% + great
the top bidder in my niches pays a dollar for the targeted keywords, why is my average epc only $0.10? what would you suggest?
Other than adsense reports, do you use any other tools? What else do you track other than impression, epm, ctr, do you think tracking other parameters help?

[ncreegan]

what is the best working format? skyscaper, leaderboard?
How many do you put on your page? two, three? four?
Which part performs best? right hand side skyscaper? leaderboard in the middle? or what?

Whatever works the best for YOU, each site is different.

Do you agree the CTR range below?

Again, each site is different.

the top bidder in my niches pays a dollar for the targeted keywords, why is my average epc only $0.10? what would you suggest?

Keep adding content, create channels based on different traffic sources to see what visitors are worth the most, get more of them...

Other than adsense reports, do you use any other tools? What else do you track other than impression, epm, ctr, do you think tracking other parameters help?

Use stat counter to make sure that you are getting good coverage with your adsense (ie, an ad is shown whenever your page is loading.) As for reports... most people do too much analysis. If the result in the "Your Earnings" column is growing every day, you're doing it right, if the number goes down, you're doing it wrong.

[jetteroheller]

Any Guru here can give a summation on how to improve adsense performance?
what is the best working format? skyscaper, leaderboard?
How many do you put on your page? two, three? four?
Do yu agree the CTR range below?
3-5% poor
5-8% O.K
8% + great

I use the same layout on serveral pages. Depending on the theme, the CTR is 1:10 different from worst to best CTR site. Viewing with URL channels single folders from this sites, the CTR difference is even much larger.

Also it depends on page views per visitor.

A site with 7 page views per visitors hat more from 3% CTR than a page with only 2 page views per visitor but 10% CTR.

the top bidder in my niches pays a dollar for the targeted keywords, why is my average epc only $0.10? what would you suggest?

Maybe the high paying ads are very soon used up.
Many low biding keywords combinations.

[Mikey85]

3-5% nice
5-8% very nice
8% + awesome, but you maybe should get worried

[bbcarter]

Back in Oct 2004, I went from a left side bar to a 250x250.

Many of my authors still do well in converting, but their pages aren't ranking well, I think because of an ageing filter- traffic is down, so earnings are too, but conversion rate is not.

I thought it was against AdSense ToS to discuss CTR- but I can't find that in their policies right now- is it?

[zygomar]

0-3 % Content is very interesting. People are sticking to the site

3-5% Content is rather interesting, although some visitors are frustrated and are going elsewhere

5-8% Content is not interesting, visitors are going elsewhere

8% + Content is crap, visitors want to leave at any cost

[Arnie]

Long time lurker, first time poster. That being said, if this post doesn't look as professional as the frequent flyers, please forgive me. My comment pertains to these 2 comments:

8% + awesome, but you maybe should get worried

8% + Content is crap, visitors want to leave at any cost

History: Had a web site since late 90's; never did anything with it to make money, just added content and built links as a hobby. Added AdSense in January of this year.

Jan = $250
Feb = $1200
Mar = $2550
Apr = $1300 so far

If I remember correctly, due to TOS, I can't post exact numbers, but my February click-thru was roughly double the amount mentioned above (not exactly, but ballpark for sure). The question is... Should I be worried?

To answer the original post, it's that same old painful response... It Depends. I've tried skyscrapers, different positions, multiple ads, etc. Here's what works for me:

One 250x250, less is more.
AdLinks work for me, but not on every site. Test.
Google Search pays me pennies. I can take it or leave it.
The more specific the pages, the better the ads that are served (in most cases), the better someone will click them.
Do it about something you love. Otherwise, it's too frustrating watching SERP's change, sandbox issues, etc.

Hope this helps. Feel like it's time I gave back something to this great community!