Thanks for the compliment.
The topic also dictates how OFTEN people click.
Believe it or not, the single page that's paying me the most on Firefox News right now is the SUBMISSION GUIDELINES, of all things. Because people who visit the submission guidelines are looking for places to submit. They see the ads offering other markets -- some legit, some not -- promptly click and go have a look. (I'm also constantly banning scammy publishers from this page. Clicker beward.)
A general rule of thumb is that if people are actively looking for something they click more often. This means that a page about an upcoming movie is going to get more clicks than a fictional story. Because people reading about an upcoming movie are likely to click on an ad matching that movie because they want more info. On the other hand, if it's a good story, people reading the story are wrapped up in the story (we hope) and not clicking on things. Plus ad targeting can be very weird on fiction.
Additionally, layout can make a huge difference to your payout. My CTR -- the rate at which visitors click on ads -- was around .5% a few months ago. I've tweaked and fiddled with the ads, trying different colors, positions, and sizes. I've gone from a .5% CTR to a 6-7% CTR. And, also, this means I'm getting a higher pay per click -- ppc rate -- because the higher the CTR the more Google PAYS you per click, due to some fancy algorithm they have.
It's all very fascinating and when you get it right you get a payment from Google. Mine was satisfyingly large this month (it's in my bank account now! yay!) and I'll therefore be accepting a bunch of submissions from writers tonight and sending out some payments of my own. I do like this whole idea. It's fun and potentially quite profitable. Can't beat that combination.
By the way, there's also other ways to make money on blogs besides advertising. One I can suggest is affiliate marketing, and you can accomplish money from affiliate marketing two ways:
1. By directly recommending products.
2. By providing links to sites people use anyway and asking your readers to access those sites through the link on your site so you get a commission. Amazon will pay you about 5% per purchase this way, some of the travel sites like Expedia will pay you, etc.
Leva