Mine your Logs

"Analyzing 1-hop queries (visitor arrived via Google, looked at only the landing page, and left), finding clusters of terms that the landing page simply could not have satisfied well, building content to address those queries, redesigning the original page to link conveniently and naturally to the new content, and then letting the stats tell me whether I successfully created a bunch of 2-hop queries or not.

If I can analyze the logs to arrive at a per-page theory about incoming visitor needs, and then prove that theory by building content and confirming revised visitor behavior, then I'm pretty sure I'm building a valuable information source -- even if it's only recognized by individual visitors going after specific queries." ronburk

Build Value

"Get inbound links from Universities, *.edu websites." fischermx

Love your Site

"So make a site('s) and love it like your child , feed it and you will see when your child grows it will be a goldmine for you." Paki_no1

Tight Niche, High CTR

"I have noticed a lot of small things that can have a huge effect on the CTR. As someone mentioned earlier, niche pages work best - this means breaking down your hierarchy into more categories if needed (and possible)" CainIV

Increase CTR using Tightly Focused Pages

"For my 2� worth of opinion, I'd add that the difference is often how tightly focused each page you put up is. Look, your goal - beyond getting lots of traffic - is to have ads shown on your pages that are truly targeted to your topic on each individual page. Looking around the web, I see lots of pages with very generic AS ads showing. I'd bet a lot that they're the ones getting 1% or less CTR. If someone got to your site from a search engine where they searched for 'red plastic widgets' and your page is about all kinds of widgets, sure, a few will probably click your AS ads. But imagine how many more would click them if your page was all about red plastic widgets (and nothing else). They'll either buy from you, hit the back button, or click one of your highly targeted AS ads that should also be about that type of widget.

So my advice (as someone who averages well over 25% CTR on 11 sites) is to post pages that are extremely focused on one product, idea, or service. Don't stray. If you're tempted to transition into a related topic, put up another page about it! I'll bet your CTR shoots way up if you're stuck in the 1%-3% range right now." Swebbie

Traffic from Forums

"... most of mine [traffic] comes from forums etc and other sites linking to me because I have some very useful unique content on a bunch of sites / subjects. And I get 100 dollars a day average, over two years with only 1200 uniques, or 3.5k page views daily.

Good useful niche unique content pays." Nitrous

Useful Unique Content

"Average 3300 daily page views, and 3000 dollars monthly.

For two years.

Secret is GENUINE useful unique content on a few different subject niche / hobby sites. And I seldom add or update anything.
And google search hates me." Nitrous

Ad Placement

"on the few micro sites I am running (just start up things - special interests of mine) where I have placed the ads in the left hand column, the CTR and CPM have been huge - sometimes 10 times or more my usual placements of leaderboard or right hand column - this seems to me to be the hottest spot, other than stuff right in the middle of the page or 'content'." webpro00801

Test, test

"biggest pearl of wisdom i can give is the following. ...

test, test and test some more.

the google adsense hot spots are spot on .. just keep testing." OddDog