ContentAds Pro

The following website: GFCM Directory gets it’s main income from selling featured links. Nevertheless some good AdSense revenue could also be made, as this website gets about 400 visitors daily. Most of these visitors will probably be webmaster looking to submit their site as not a lot of internet browsers stumble on to directories like this. Webmasters are usually pretty adblind and one needs to be a little creative to get their focus on a add.

Below is the current website set-up with only one 468×90 add in a clearly defined advertisement spot.

This ad position (spot 1)  stand out but is not located within the area a user will most certainly look (sea heatmap article). Most webmaster will visit a page like this and move straight on to thier needed category. Having ads below this spot will probably not produce a high CTR. Also this spot will be below the fold on most webbrowsers.

Furthermore this website is selling featured listings to their customers. It seems a little bit unfair to push those positions further down and place an AdSense add just above them. I therefore suggest removing this ad block and utulizing the space above the main content for the main AdSense ads.
The logo and main header is wel designed and attracts a lot of attention. Having a visual leaderboard just below it might be a good idea as the visitors will probably scan over his area on their way to the main categories. To fill the space on the right a Link Unit (120×90) is positioned on here. This position is accompanied by a small icon (the icon here is just an example) to fit in the sites theme and sort of mimic the category list layout on the page.  This spot is also on route to the search field, which might be usefull, as webmasters will quickly resort to the search feature if they can not find thier appropriate category from this overview page.

A third ad (234×60) could be placed at the bottom right of the category listing as this will be the area of main attention and this spot is currently still open. Also this spot is a natural exit point for the user after looking through all categories. The user may want to keep on browsing at this point, resort to the search button or click the back button. All angles are covered with this set up.

Here’s the suggested setup:

The inner pages listing the result could also be optimized but let’s keep it to only the main page for this review.

The following image is the final suggested setup:

I hope these suggestions sound logical and I would love to hear if they work out!