A thread at WebmasterWorld named 5 mistakes I made which effected decrease in CPC and decrease in earnings asks members to post 5 mistakes they have made in the past with AdSense. Some of those listed already include;
- I seo'd a site for a general term "small widgets" and adsense displayed general ads for "small widgets". However, "small blue widgets" was paying much higher. I had to go back and optimize the page for adsense to show "small blue widgets" while seo'ing the page for "small widgets"
- Biggest mistake = not adding new content often enough.
- Putting a 120x600 skyscraper in my site's colours to the right of my content, and thinking that was the best I could do.
- Not originally blending my ads into the site
- Not putting AdLinks on as soon as they came out, cost me a few thou$and
- When I started using this in Sept 2003, I thought just putting ad will give me revenue and when I received 3 times more income than other banner exchange I thought its perfect I don't have to do any thing
- Until July 2004 I wasn't convinced that anyone can earn 4 figures per months in AdSense.
- replying to this thread instead of working on my site ;)
More at the thread (might want to skip over the first few).