Most of the blog and websites today have some sort of advertisements on it. And the obvious reason for it is to make money. Advertisers pay those blog or website owners for the ads shown on their websites by clicks or impressions. Others pay by commissions for every sale made by the blog or website that have ads on them. Some bloggers prefers not to put any ads on their blogs and maybe the primary reason is they wanted to establish their own brand and this is true for most businesses that have their own blogs. But seldom do I see personal or niche websites that don’t have any ads on them. And again, I can only assume that they have other money making strategies like selling their own products like for example an ebook. Those blogs make profits as a back end which at first making a blog popular and after they have many loyal visitors and subscribers in the end the blogger sells them products through newsletters.
So how will you improve the efficiency of your ads? what I mean about efficiency is not exactly making more profits but making it more visible to your visitors. Personally, I believe that it is one of the most important factors to consider in any blogs or websites that have advertisements on them. The reason is very simple. How will a visitor in your site look into the ads or have interest in them if they can’t see them? Yes, your ads is there but because of all the clutter and fancy design of your site, the visitor is distracted and will not notice your ads anymore. I see blogs who have an awesome design and really attracted to them but when it comes to advertisement efficiency, they are very poor.
#1. Make Your Blog or Website Simple
You bet, that is what makes ads efficient. Making your blog as simple as possible will make your ads stand out. By removing distractions, you will have a better chance of showing the ads to your visitors. Offering the least choices to move away from you blog will force the reader to just concentrate on what you want to offer, ads and content (post or articles) of your blog. If it is not very important, then avoid placing those things you put on your sidebars or other decorations. Too much different kinds of ads also contribute to confusion so just concentrate on the ads that you profit the most.
One good illustration to explain this is a sheet of bond paper with a tiny black dot on the center. If you will show it to my face, that is the only thing I will see if you will ask me “what do you see in this paper?”. Just remember this quotation from Leonardo Da Vinci “Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication”.
#2. Ad Placement
So what is ad placement? it is where you put your ads on your site “effectively”. So it’s not just slapping the ads anywhere but to places to make it effective (see heat maps below). Visibility is not really the issue here because even if you shout it out to your visitors and tell them to “see this ad!” or “click this ad!” they won’t bother to look at it because people already have a built in rejection to advertisement. Advertisements are simply annoying so people tend to develop ad blindness in their system. One good example is when we are watching television. We really hate commercials because it distracts our viewing, but most of us ignore that it is important so we can watch those TV programs for free.
One technique to make an ad effective is making it appear as part of the blog and not as advertisement. This is specially true to text link advertisement because you can change the text link color and borderline. Sometimes even if I know that a link is an ad, if it blends well I don’t hesitate to look into it. So below are samples of heat map from different advertising networks for your websites and blogs.
a) Adsense Heat Map
Adsense Heat Map for Blogs
Adsense Heat Map for Forums
b) Adbrite Heat Map
Adbrite Heat Map
c) Chitika Heat Map
Chitika Heat Map
Posted by Manuel
Manuel Montala was an online entrepreneur who enjoys blogging about entrepreneurship and gathering information for his blog to help budding entrepreneurs. You can also reach him on twitter: http://twitter.com/mmontala
Like this post? Why not share it with your friends on facebook? Click the facebook share button!
The latest stories from Entrepreneur.
Turning a Layoff Into a Sweet Startup
28 Jan 2012 at 4:00pm
Meet three entrepreneurs who turned their passion for baking into encore careers.
How Pinterest Is Becoming the Next Big Thing in Social Media for Business
7 Feb 2012 at 12:00pm
The online 'pinboard' is driving serious traffic and proving to be a powerful online marketing tool for some companies.
10 Workplace Trends to Watch in 2012
4 Feb 2012 at 4:00pm
Keep up with the ever changing American workplace with these 10 trends.
Fast-Growing Chegg Aims for High Marks with Students
18 Jan 2012 at 9:00am
From homework help to the inside scoop on professors, we examine how this textbook entrepreneur is staying ahead of the curve in the education market.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Manuel,
This is a very helpful posting to those who are at the stage of Monetizing their blog or website. My take on this one is to really focus on testing, until one finds out what suits to their blog structure. The Maps are clear enough to suggest what is the best ad type in different ad networks.
The way I will put it is on the sidebars, maybe on my header (this should be a high paying ad). I do not really want some distraction on the main content body. In this way, the readers of my blog can focus on the content without distractions. It sometimes annoying to be distracted if you’re in the middle of something interesting.
Good post!
These are great tips, especially for a newbie like me! I didn’t know that there are optimal ad placements you can use to make your ads more effective. Maraming salamat po!
you definitely love for more detail with low price
Do Not be Shy. Share Your thoughts!