Written on September 23rd, 2004 at 07:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Adsense Tips for Bloggers 7 - Well Placed and Designed Ads
This is part 7 in a series of posts on increasing AdSense revenue for bloggers. The full series is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8.
Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads
The forth element of our Adsense Equation is that of having well designed and optimally placed Adsense Ads. I’ve found that ad positioning is incredibly important. I remember shifting the ads on one of my blogs a while back and being over the moon to discover the next morning that the move had doubled the click through rates that I’d had over night! Its worth doing some tweaking.
Adsense Ad placement and design is an issue that is often hotly debated in Adsense discussion forums. It seems that each Adsense user has their own strategy - some like ads that blend in, others like ads that stand out from the rest of the page. Some like ads in banner positions, others in skyscrapers, others like to put them right in the middle of content. In my experience, different strategies work on different blogs at different times. The key tip I’ll give you is to experiment. Try new positions and design and track your results. One of the best ways you can do this is by using Adsense Tracker which is an amazing tracking package for adsense which gives you much more control over what and how you track your adsense performance. It does cost to purchase the tracker but in my experience you’ll make your money back pretty quickly by using it to adapt your Adsense strategies.
Let me also share a few other tips that you might like to experiment with.
Blend - Most successful Adsense users seem to be taking the approach of blending their ads into the overall theme of their page. This often means making the ad’s background (and often border) the same (or similar) colour to the background of the page and making the title and URL the same as links of the rest of the page. In this way the ad does not stand out as being ‘ad-like’. Having said this I know of a few bloggers who take the opposite approach and make their ads as bright and ugly as possible in the hope of attracting the attention of their readers. I don’t subscribe to this because I think it cheapens the overall feel and look of a page.
In Content - More and more bloggers (and webmasters) are putting their ads inside the main body of their posts. In this way the ads are prominent and more likely to be seen by readers as they read your content. If your text wraps around the ads this can be quite effective. On the flipside of this argument is that you may run the risk of frustrating your readers with dominant ads. People reading content online are a fickle bunch and get easily turned off by blatant advertising.
Above the Fold - it is generally accepted that your Adsense ads should be placed towards the top of your page and be visable without your reader having to scroll down. Studies show that blog visitors stay on average for only 60 or so seconds, many without scrolling down. If you ads are hidden towards the bottom of your page you decrease the likelihood of them ever being seen let alone clicked.
Left is Best - Google has put together a ‘heat map’ which is probably the best thing that you can look at when thinking about the positioning of your ads. You’ll see from it that they have found that ads on the left hand side of the page do much better than those on the right hand side.
Too Dominent? - The position and design of your Adsense ads needs to be balanced with the overall purposes and design of your blog. What is the priority of your blog - is it to make money or is it something else. I have a number of blogs - and place ads differently on each depending upon their purposes. For example this blog is not a commercial blog - I’m more interested in building relationships, sharing and hearing others ideas and updating those interested in what I’m doing with my life. As a result my Adsense Ads are in a less prominent banner position and are designed to fit with the overall theme of the blog. However on my Digital Photography Blog there is obviously a more commercial intent (as well as it being something of a passion and hobby). As a result I experiment with more prominent Adsense ads (usually skyscraper and within content).
I cannot stress enough how useful it is to experiment. What works on one blog doesn’t always work on another. I’ve also noticed that if you have a blog with regular and loyal readers that it is good to keep things changing as your readers tend to get used to the way your blog is and become blind to things like Adsense Ads. I notice that when I move my ads around that it often creates higher click throughs for a few days - until the blindness kicks in again. Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense is an excellent E-book written with lots of good tips on positioning your adsense ads if you’re wanting to get another person’s opinion on this topic.
Read the rest of this series at Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8.
update: For even more reading on positioning your Adsense ads see a mini series of three posts that I wrote on the topic here.
14 Responses to “Adsense Tips for Bloggers 7 - Well Placed and Designed Ads”
peter
November 8th, 2004 1:19 am
… Having said this I know of a few bloggers who take the opposite approach and make their ads as bright and ugly as possible in the hope of attracting the attention of their readers. I don"t subscribe to this because I think it cheapens the overall feel and look of a page. - That depends. Recently, I developed a feeling that placing big adsense square in the middle of the content cheapens the overall look of the page even more. Especially when the author tries to hide the fact that they are ads.
LivingRoom >> A space for Life
January 1st, 2005 11:54 pm
Adsense Tips for Bloggers 7 - Well Placed and Designed Ads
Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads The forth element of our Adsense Equation is that of having well designed and optimally placed Adsense Ads. I"ve found that ad positioning…
Brian
May 6th, 2005 4:49 pm
Now THIS page has a lot of good, juicy info for the blogentreprenuer..thanks!
Brian
Have a nice day!
Paintless Dent Repair Training
Down Under Geek
July 25th, 2005 3:48 pm
Google for “Heat Maps” - they are “eye maps” that have done to show where people naturally look when they visit a page.
You can pay for a report but I find a lot of the information is on the site already.
Gilbert
August 2nd, 2005 12:03 am
Great advice, I’ve read through the other articles on your site and really appreciate the info as a noob in the blog world this really helps…thx
http://gilsmethod.blogspot.com
Octopus
September 10th, 2005 6:28 am
Darren,
I have looked throuugh your site. You inspired me to really work on my blog. Other than just sharing with others my passion, there is also some sort of reward to ‘fund’ my passion.
Will test out your tips!
Cheers!
Suldog
September 14th, 2005 11:56 pm
I’m just starting out on my blogging journey and I appreciate the great advice, and the time it took to clearly present it. Thank you very much!
Jim “Suldog” Sullivan
mattb
September 30th, 2005 4:20 am
Great info! I’m going to take yopur advice on blemnding the ads, I had it sticking out like a sore thumb but maybe that’s not the best way.
jobin martin
December 12th, 2005 8:24 pm
I have learned a lot from this site…but i have one doubt can I maximise my income by using a free blog server like blogspot???
I started a health related issue in it and quite a few are visiting,iI hope u’r advices will pay good…..
Valério
January 6th, surf zone.7:34 am
Dicas muito boas!
Paul Harrison
January 18th, surf zone.11:55 am
A third option to blending the ads in and ugliness: complimentary color scheme.
On my blog, which has an orange color scheme somewhat like this blog, the ad block is a nice cool green. It’s at the bottom of the page, and after scrolling through all that orange, the eye is positively thirsty for that big green square.
I’m not sure the bottom of the page is the best position (that nifty google heat map in your article says it’s not bad). I like it for three reasons: One, it doesn’t uglify above the fold. Two, people who have read a page will be looking at it when they finish and are thinking about where to go next. And three, it can be huge without getting in the way of things.
Malayshop.com
July 20th, surf zone.4:12 pm
Currently I put one of the adsense ads below the cbox message. It’s works. Also I put it in my shopping store and title it as a promotion.
Malaysia Store: http://www.malayshop.com/store/
dX-Xel
June 6th, 2007 3:54 pm
yeahh…I think it’s not really hard to blend the ads with our content..I’ll try it..
Mark
July 28th, 2007 8:19 am
Interesting stuff - I’ve been wondering how improve adsense revenues on my blog http://tcm-blog-mark.blogspot.com but I think I can learn form your advice on my website http://www.totalclientmarketing.com too.
So, I’d like to offer my thanks for your incite and if I’m successful in making effective changes I’ll pop back on here in the future to let you know!
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