daz said:
Part of the terms and conditions of the programme is that you aren't allowed to reveal what you earn. However, if you manage to cover the cost of your hosting, consider the it a success.
You can reveal the amounts you've been paid by Google
Speaking of adsense are any of the so called "I will reveal adsense keywords that gain $xx dollers per click" programs actually any good or are they just a big con (the latter I think as why would you want to earn other people money)
They're a big con, you can find high-paying content by joining forums such as Sitepoint and Webmaster World and see people exclaiming about how much they get per click - but really you have to do lots of work to get original content up and get traffic, so unless you're quick and have some marketing weight (ie, an established site), it's not worth it.
Regarding Adsense placement - don't over-do it. But do blend the ads into the site's colour scheme, that should increase CTR. Don't let ads get in the way of content - let them augment it. The maximum number of ad units per page was 3 last time I checked, and I wouldn't do more than that anyway. One banner ad block at the top of the page, one in a column, and one of the square-ish blocks a paragraph or two into the content - and even that's probably overload.
I'd say that to start making any 'real money' ($10+/day) you need about 2,000 impressions per day and a CTR of around 2%.
It also, of course, depends on the content. I find it kinda ironic that World Wind's commercial competitors often have their (pretty high-paying) ads displayed on worldwindcentral.com - so they're effectively bankrolling us
Worldwindcentral.com gets a high CTR probably down to some cheeky positioning...I mean..hey...can't help it if lots of non-native-English speakers visit the help pages from the World Wind program and click on the ads offering help, right?
I'm part of
www.worldwindcentral.com and we (somehow) pull in about $1k/month (but we're a non profit...dang it), and all we did is throw a few Adsense blocks around. Interestingly, the small purple bars all over the Wiki section make less than 5% of our total revenue - ie, the "link bars" are useless - make room for the full ads.
Edit: Just looked at the site....I'd change the colour of the ad block there to match the page background colour - though sometimes it works better for the ads to stand out, sometimes not. I guess it depends on how stupid your audience is
Also, I'd put a link bar (728x15 or so) at the top of the page there, to fill that gap after the menu buttons. It's not obtrusive, and there's nothing there but blank space at the moment - so it'd be Good.