My niche site just became #1 in the Google SERPS. My visits have sky rocketed but unfortunately I'm making MUCH less money. I used to make 8 or 9 bucks a day. But now I only make like 50% of that, mainly because the CPC have become MUCHH lower (around 0.15~0.20) with more clicks. When I was third in Google, CPC's were around $1.15 ~2 and I would get 4 or 5 clicks.

Any advice, tips to optimize my Google Adsense? Thanks

try to change ads placement if that helps..

I agree with the above poster, try changing your add placement and even the color. Maybe the CPC somehow got lowered in your niche?

cpc 0.20 is normal value

I'm in a similar situation.I was making about 10$ with 6-7 clicks and a few weeks back i had 53 clicks and only about 18 bucks because of the low cpc.These days the cpc is getting even worse.

Originally Posted by ILoveCSharp

cpc 0.20 is normal value

Yes, but what about cpc 0.02 from usa traffic?

My CPC is much lower in 2012 too.

Probably there is an exceptionally high chance that your ads are non-relevant.

Contrary to popular opinion, the first ads you see in an ad block will not necessarily be relevant to the page, but are likely to be the lowest paying. Although I cannot prove my theory, I believe this occurs because google tends to feature ads that get a high click through rate across a variety of websites regardless of relevance.

The solution is to use the Allow and Block ads in your adsense account dashboard to block advertiser url's. Be careful to only block the primary domain and ignore any subdomain or directory extensions appended to the url.

I once blocked over 100 url's before my click through rate and pay per click went up. Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Zoco1

Yes, but what about cpc 0.02 from usa traffic?

definitely crap must be getting a lot of invalid clicks

Find below sites I blocked. This helped loads........

Be interested to know what other member block....

amazon.com
away.com
business.com
couponalbum.com
ebay.com
expedia.com
kijiji.com
local.com
mysimon.com
nextag.com
pronto.com
shopping.com
shopzilla.com
target.com
walmart.com
webcrawler.com
yahoo.com
yellowpages.com

Originally Posted by protoj89

Yeah, I've been checking my analytics, but not much has changed. Mostly 90% of visitors come from the U.S and my bounce rate (although high at 72%) has not changed at all.

The only thing that seems to have changed is I get way more clicks (CTR is around 1.5% now) but CPC has signficantly been lowered to around 20~30 cents.

definitely invalid clicks

invalid clicks decreases cpc sharply naturally

Originally Posted by falconer

Find below sites I blocked. This helped loads........

Be interested to know what other member block....

amazon.com
away.com
business.com
couponalbum.com
ebay.com
expedia.com
kijiji.com
local.com
mysimon.com
nextag.com
pronto.com
shopping.com
shopzilla.com
target.com
walmart.com
webcrawler.com
yahoo.com
yellowpages.com

Hmmm... thanks for that list. I'll definitely block these URL's and see what happens.

Originally Posted by Kickflip

Are you checking which country your traffic is coming from? Is your bounce rate higher now?

If you don't know the answers to these questions, you need to get Analytics going.

Yeah, I've been checking my analytics, but not much has changed. Mostly 90% of visitors come from the U.S and my bounce rate (although high at 72%) has not changed at all.

The only thing that seems to have changed is I get way more clicks (CTR is around 1.5% now) but CPC has signficantly been lowered to around 20~30 cents.

Originally Posted by ILoveCSharp

definitely crap must be getting a lot of invalid clicks

Actually no, I rarely get invalid clicks.