I have been running a freelance writing jobs site for just over a year. In the first eight months or so, ad revenue was zero to very little, all because I believed the site was just gaining traction. After about a year and a healthy following, I noticed that ad revenue was completely flat. This led me to start troubleshooting. I made a very small change that has seemed to make all the difference; I started using whitespace around my ads.
Prior to that, I had my ads fill up one of my sidebars, which essentially made it blend in with the background of the design. Other sites use this technique, including theweathernetwork.ca. If you visit pages in their site, you will notice that they use about a half inch of whitespace on either side of their ads on the left sidebar. Same goes for my site at freelancewritingjobs.ca.
If you don’t think your ads are performing, make this small change and see what happens. Worked for me! I’d love to know how it worked for you if you want to e-mail me or leave a comment.
