Well I moved my ads around on one of my forums this past week (plus a few days) and boy has it worked out quite well. In the past 7 Days I’ve made 10.79 compared to 2.45 all of last month. I know I wasn’t “optimized” then, but this just goes to show you that it does work.
Some will say that the size ads I’m using, as well as the location is a bit “overwhelming”, but I haven’t had anyone complain yet, and registrations haven’t gone down at all in the week I’ve been using it so far.
Anyways, I’ve got 2 Adsense blocks below the navbar (for guests only of course). I’ve got them split to the left and right, with the left giving text ads, and the right image ads. Both ad blocks are 200x200px. Check the screenshot. I’ve also added a message above to let guests know that if they sign up, it removes the ads from their view. (Thanks to Brent Wilson for the help with setting up the ad location)