yep you're right. i myself go to many tool sites to use the tools, so I DO tend to look past the ads.

Can you write some articles related to the tool that your site offers and direct some of the traffic there, perhaps after they've used the tool?

TJ

Oh, I've just noticed that it's you again, jtwald.

Having seen your two-page site, I don't know how you could improve your figures. Your free tool will probably not attract visitors looking to spend much money, and the keywords for your page all seem to be quite low.

Are there relevant articles you could write to appeal to the sort of visitors that will visit your free tool page? Articles about games, games hardware, tactics, reviews, etc? Most people on this forum will agree that the more unique (i.e. not copied from Wikipedia or some other publisher's site) content you have, the more traffic you get.

I'm sorry.

I should be more familiar with the AdSense TOS.

I would appreciate it if a moderator could delete this topic for me, as I do not intend to violate my terms.

Thank you for the input.

I've edited out the specifics, maybe now we can get back on topic to the real question which is how you take a traditionally non-performing (in AdSense terms) site like the OP's and make it perform.

Personally I think these types of site can have some value:-

my website is a 2 page tool (input and output), and people learn to just use it and get out.

The trick is to funnel the traffic - convince the user to take a detour elsewhere rather than exit immediately, or to simply make use of any "authority" status inherrent in the site to kick start another site.

Thoughts?

Apologies for the thread surgery without sending everyone a sticky, but I needed to make the thread make sense.

[edited by: trillianjedi at 3:02 pm (utc) on Sep. 21, 2006]

I have a 2 page Tool website as well. In fact it is what I started with AS first. It was nice to see a few clicks here and there and making my first $$... But nothing I could do would increase my CTR significantly. If you can expand your site, go for it! I couldn't so the only answer for me was to let it be and make other websites that can be expanded.

Of course the user is just going after your tool instead of clicking on the ads. For example, if it is a currency converter, the people that go there have one thing in mind, converting currency values. It will never compare to a review site where most people are more in a spending mode.

The trick is to funnel the traffic - convince the user to take a detour elsewhere rather than exit immediately,

I don't really think that would work that well, but it is worth a shot. Definitely give your users the option to go further.

or to simply make use of any "authority" status inherrent in the site to kick start another site.

I think that this is the way to go, though it doesn't have to be a separate site, it can be on the same site.

I'm assuming the site is set up like this:
www.example.com/ - the first page of the tool where all the links go
www.example.com/result/ - the results of the tool

I would move the tool to www.example.com/tool/ and then put up a new home page with the link to the tool very prominent, so that you do not offend any users.

Now I would only have to develop the rest of the site.