Banner Ad Blindness

the problem with banner blindness literally comes from things looking like banners, often higher contrast blocks that standout as different from the true content of the site.

If you have the ability to know where your banner's are to be placed try and integrate it to look more like the site content, you should see improved results, or at least more people 'seeing' your banner.

There's a short article about it on my blog in my sig fwiw

Do a survey with your visitors and find out as much as you can about them. What interests them, motivates them etc. Once you have them figured out, see if you can find a suitable product to promote that's relevant to the reason most people visit your site. If they are wannabe authors then promote an author course or something.

Then dump the banners that the affiliates give you, make your own. Don't worry about it looking nice and colourful, definitely don't animate it - think like a copywriter and simply turn the banner into attention grabbing text with a reason to click.

That's about the best you can get out of any site that relies on banners and clicks. Some sites just don't attract buyers. But if you're getting a few hundred dollars per month then I'm pretty confident you can at least double or tripple that, your layout is far from optimised. Every page needs relevant ads and offers, keep them high on the page. I personally don't find the amazon widgets and banners to convert. When I promote amazon, I make my own banners for individual products and try to make them as relevant to each page as possible. The difference in conversions are huge.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

Lee

consider doing targeted incentivized zip/email submits.. e.g.

"Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, WITHIN THE WOODS superior quality final release!"

incentivized zip-submit leads (after completion) to amazon's offer of whoever-released-evil-dead-with-that-****-as-bonus-material.