Needmoney: Adsense earnings way down

I think it is the summer, this month, user activity on the internet, traffic, etc.

I write and maintain a number of sites. (Please note, I write - most ad sense sites are regurgitated junk articles and gibberish), and my CTR (click thru rate) has been dropping and traffic is off as well.

I don't know why. I have been pinging and posting like crazy but I don't think it is because of effort. I think the summer vacation slump has hit the ad sense/make money online/make money blogging world particularly hard. And at a time when I needmoney!

Okay, there are ways to increase your traffic...

Post more stories to Digg and Reddit for the short term effect.
Visit other readers and writes profiles and sites found on MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog.
Comment on other blogs.
Write more articles and post to Article City and what not.
Write more provocative post titles.

And there are ways to increase your CTR with Ad Sense...

Revise your link and titles on your Ad Sense ads. They need refreshing and testing anyway.
Move your ad sense ads around a bit.
Change the ad sense ad formats (but avoid those ad sense images ads, they just don't work).
Change you blog or web site layout. Add some more pictures or graphics to draw attention to the drive by visitor.
Verify and test your article keywords with Adwords keyword tool. Instead of writing about a "Summer holiday" change to a higher paying keyword like "family Disney vacation" for instance. Your overall ad sense clicks may be lower, but you might as well optimize the payout per click.

Oh well. I can't give up on ad sense now. Just have to work harder!