I'm not rich yet - why oh why?

[insight]

Well I'm not rich yet from adense :)

I have 3 sites.

www.andrewsblog.net
www.humblemoney.com
www.blogpig.net

All 3 have the same design, and just a few lines of adsense. I'm really concentrating on building up content first but would like to increase my adsense clicks as well of course.

I have only 1000 impressions and a 0.5 clickthrough rate so far and am a complete newbie re: adsense and blog revenue.

I also strongly suspect that my blogs 1) a personal one 2) trading related 3) blog comment and tools; are hardly the ideal niche style blogs for revenue either :)

Cheers,
insight

[sommy]

I have visited: http://www.andrewsblog.net/

Maybe you could change the colours in your adsense ads, so they have the same look and feel of your other links... Kind of blending in.

In a blog I would also add more targeted ads, so not only in the left column, but in the text itself...

Maybe some more finetuning, and ultimately you will get where you want.

[MisterTut]

On all three sites, your ad unit is nearly or completely obscured below "the fold", and this problem will ony get worse as you add links and archives.

Elegant solution: Move your ad unit to the top of the left column. This ricks for two reasons: 1) it will never be pushed off the page, and 2) according to the Google HeatMap, that puts the ads at one of the very most advantageous positions.

Try it!

Later, you may want to add more units, but if you make the change I suggest, let it sit for a week or so before implementing any other changes.

-Best luck,

[golden14]

On humblemoney - Strikes me a 'google link' bar (4 deep?) in matching orange colour, under a new heading of 'articles' (Heading in the same black as your other headings) would work well on the left toolbar. Whilst 'Banner blindness' might be an issue on other sites - I'm think a small-mid size banner in the same orange (text only - NOT text & graphics!) would work well at the top of this site. Thoughts guys & girls? Insight - Let us know over what period the 1,000 impressions is over?(If this a day let's talk code sharing!) I am sure we can help you up from 0.5 %. Other thought is swap the orange for the classic 0000FF blue colour all round. Although bizarrely my best CTR ratio at the minute is running with bright yellow background and red highlighted titles - DON'T try this though as I have no idea why it's working as yet but it is by far and away my best CTR ratio (and belive me it looks awful but as for the $$$$'s), and for the doubters believe me if you're getting a 20%+ CTR and being worried about being banned by G for too big a CTR then stop worrying by a lonnnnnnnnng! way.
:)

[golden14]

With regard to 'humblemoney' put adsense ads on the left in the 'matching' orange asap.(suitable heading in black as per my thoughts above for 'google links'
Split main page into multiple pages / articles on 'no ads below the fold' principle. You could add another four 5 pages for little or no effort by dividing the first page up into multiple articles. :)