Two of the most important axioms of Internet marketing are to know your advertising medium and know your audience. If your AdSense ad design and placement is driven by emotion and personal preference rather than facts, then you will ultimately fail as an Internet marketer. It is imperative to use ad designs that are effective while taking into account what you know about your audience.
Let’s first talk specifically about ad design. When using Google’s text ads you do not want to use borders. Many people believe the borders make their Adsense ads stand out, and they would be correct. Therein lays the problem. You do not want your ads to stick out like a sore thumb. You’re sending a signal that this is an ad and most people have an aversion to being solicited. Therefore their reaction, in a sense, is to dodge or ignore the ad. However, if your Adsense ads look like they’re a regular part of your web page visitors to your website are more apt to scan the ads and hopefully click on them.
What about ad color? This may insult your artistic proclivities, but stay with the regular Google ad colors which consists of the blue link and black text. The reason for using this color scheme is because people are conditioned to recognize the blue text as hyperlinks and that they should click on them. Because of the blue link, your visitor’s subconscious mind is telling them that some action needs to take place. If you use some other color like bright green or pink, you are disrupting your visitor’s normal surfing habits.
Also, stay with the white background. There’s a reason why we typically write on white paper – it’s easier to read. A colored background makes the ad stand out, which is not what you want. Remember, you want the ad to blend in with the rest of your web page. Furthermore, colored backgrounds make the ad more difficult to read. Now there has been some discussion in the marketplace as to the effectiveness of using red as your link color. If you wish to give it a try that is your prerogative, but you are encouraged to stay with blue.
Regarding ad design and color, you want your AdSense ads to blend well with your site. You want them to compliment your site and appear as if they’re providing additional content. You do not want them to appear as though they are contrasting with your website. When your AdSense ads contrast with your site it creates a condition known as ad blindness. That’s right, the more your ad stands out the less likely visitors will see it.
Now that we have addressed ad color let’s talk about ad size. The best performing ad sizes according to Google are the following:
336×280 large rectangle (four ads)
300×250 medium rectangle (four ads)
160×600 wide skyscraper (five ads)
When designing your website keep these facts in mind. However, you do not want to arbitrarily squeeze certain AdSense ads into your site just because they have been designated as the best performing. The other ad sizes have value as well. The purpose of revealing these facts is to let you now that the wider formats tend to perform better. The reason is because they are more readable.
Currently Google allows you to place three text ads on each page of your site. It is suggested that you strategically max out your allotment of ads on each page. But this raises the question of “Where?”
The content of your page determines the best location to place your AdSense ads. When placing your ads there are certain things to consider.
Where is my visitor’s attention likely to be focused?
How can I place ads into an area without getting the user’s way?
How can I keep the web page clean and uncluttered?
Google provides an ad placement schematic to which they refer as their “heat map.” This is a diagram of the most productive ad placements. Here are their most productive ad locations:
> Top of the web page.
> Bottom of the web page.
> Upper left-hand corner.
> In the middle-left of your page content.
This serves only as a guideline. Put your users first when deciding on ad location. Consider their viewing habits and what will be most interesting and useful to them.
If you follow these simple guidelines regarding your AdSense ads you will discover that you will have a better response to your ads and therefore a higher click through rate. Do not allow emotions and personal preferences to determine ad design, color and placement. Your goal is to make money from your AdSense ads. If you can’t help yourself and wish to get personally creative and emotionally involved, give up Internet marketing and become an artist.
By: AdSense Primer
About the Author:
Published by
AdSensePrimer.com
Copyright 2009 AdSensePrimer.com
All rights reserved.
AdSense Primer’s goal is to provide you with informative articles and educational resources regarding Google AdSense. Learn the tricks of the trade in utilizing Google AdSense as a profit center for your website.
There are many steps to creating a successful travel blog, and some steps are more difficult than others. Personality is key in becoming a successful travel blogger, and your personality needs to come out through your online blog. So, the first step to creating a successful travel blog is to establish your unique persona. There are some ways to give your blog some life, the first way being using your real name on posts, throughout your website, and on social networking sites. This way, your readers are more likely to connect with you and your blog.
After establishing your blog persona, you should make sure it’s easy for readers to contact you by making your contact information easily available throughout your site. It is also helpful to give people different ways to contact you, whether it be through e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter, social networking sites keep people involved in your day. If you plan on being unable to access your computer or the internet for a period of time, let your readers know! You can use the Wordpress plugin WP-ContactForm or an out of office reply on your travel email account… Continue reading
Hitting the actual top of the blogs world involves lots of commitment from you which includes posting consistently, getting your market engaged in your blog, understanding when to express your opinion and being able to market yourself on line.These will be four of the “must do things” in order to obtain acknowledgement in the blogosphere but there are other elements of blogging which any time utilized, should really elevate your on-line brand and enable you to create those much sought after qualified prospects for your main business.We have posted five Multi level markeing blog site strategies which are often not addressed and just simply make sense when you analyze them. It really is about your voice and understand it properly, the belief aspect you’re after with your audience will follow rapidly which indicates prospects and income in your pocket.MLM Web Log Secrets1. Chat directly to your target market. What we indicate by this is your core target audience. Of course you’ll certainly have passing website visitors visiting your weblog however the “bread and butter” would be your mainstay audience. Help make them feel exclusive and while they will… Continue reading
So, how much traffic are you driving to your blog?… Now, in order to have a blog that produces a massive amount of traffic for your business and then turning that traffic into a massive amount of traffic, you need to promote it.
1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
In order for the major search engines to know that your blog exists, you need to get it indexed by adding your RSS feed to your search engine accounts.
Install the All in One SEO Pack plugin and use it to add title, description and keywords for your blog, posts and pages.
In your back office, change the permalink settings for your blog posts from the url that includes the number to the one that includes the blog post title.
Where relevant, link your posts to your other blog posts as well as the other sites in your niche.
2. Blog Communities
Submit your blog to good blog communities. Google will index your blog as these communities have good search engine rankings. And you will start getting followers.
3. Blog Directories
Submit your blog to blog directories in the relevant category(ies). This is very powerful, it’s like being listed in the yellow… Continue reading
