The basic goal that you have to instil in your head is that YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR ADS LOOK LESS LIKE ADS. “Well what do you mean by that?” I hear you ask.
Well, the sad truth and an adsense publishers nightmare is a phenomenon that I call “banner phobia”. These days surfers tend to automatically overlook anything that even remotely resembles an advertisement because surfers are too used to seeing and being bombarded with adverts. It’s a reflex action, its not that your visitors are not interested in what the ads have to offer, its just a case of “banner phobia”.
This hub will focus on putting ads on your website in such a way so that they are not overlooked by your visitors.
Remember : Get more visitors to notice your ads by placing them in the right place and making them look less like traditional banner advertising and hence get more clicks.
Step 1 Using the best Ad Format
I have experimented with Ad formats in over a hundred websites and what usually works best for me are the 336 x 280 large rectangular blocks and the 300 x 250 smaller rectangular blocks. These two Ad formats have got me the best click through rates (CTR). The worst Ad format you could choose is the 468 x 60 or the 728 x 90, which look just like banners, and as mentioned above, causes "banner phobia" and get the least click through rates. You should also stay well clear of the tall vertical units such as the 120 x 240, 160 x 600 and the 120 x 600 because the only places that these would fit would be the left or right hand sides of the webpage. This positioning will give them a very low CTR.
Remember : Use 336 x 280 units or 300 x 250 if your really stuck for space.
Step 2 Using the best colours for your Ad Units
As a general rule of thumb, always make your Ad Unit background and border colour the same as your website background colour. Why? I hear you ask. Well the reason for this is that the ad unit can easily blend with your website and content and does not set off any alarm bells or "banner phobia". This may result in your visitors actually taking the time to look at your advertisements and perhaps click.
Always go with the default blue link colour for your ad unit or slightly darker blue or even dark green. Try to always make the advertiser url as invisible as possible by making this a light grey. One last tweak, if you have any links in your main content portion of your webpage, change the colour of these to something other than your adsense link colour. However, keep your navigation the same colour as your Adsense links to make your adsense links look like they are part of your navigation.
Remember : The border and background colours of your Ad Unit must match your website background colour and the link should be the standard blue with the advertisers url a light grey. All other links in the content of your webpage should not be the same colour as your Adsense links.
Step 3 Positioning the Ad Units
Just like the property business, its all about location, location, location. Its sad to see that most new Adsense publishers these days tend to put their Ad units on the left and right hand sides of the webpage. This will drastically reduce your CTR. The objective is to get position these Adsense units as close to the top and middle of your webpage as possible.
Visitors are conditioned to look for content in the middle of the webpage and will always overlook the sides because surfers who have come to your website in search of an answer want only the answer which will be in the middle or the content portion of your website and will often always overlook the sides.
What works best for me is a large rectangular block just BELOW the Title and just above the content text. This is powerful at maximising your CTR because the visitor reads your title, is interested and what is the next thing they see? Advertisements.
The next best position to place an Ad Unit is right AFTER the main content. Combine these two and you have a webpage that is geared to have a high CTR because visitors who want products or services NOW will click the ads below the title and visitors who have been educated by your article and are interested in products or services related to your article will click the Ad units at the bottom of your webpage.
If your feeling a bit more adventurous and also if you have a long article, why not place an ad unit INSIDE your content, that's right place it about halfway through your article and make your text wrap around it. These Ad Units will gain the interest of visitors who were initially interested in the article and are now bored. So this is their ‘out' and you stand to make some money when they click away.
Last but not least, you've got Google Adsense Ad Link Units that are Google Adsense Ads that are grouped into links. Choose an appropriate size for your Ad Links Units and place them ABOVE your website navigation. This makes these Ad Link units look just like your navigation. So imagine the scenario when your visitors have finished reading your content and haven't already clicked away on one of your rectangular blocks that you have carefully positioned, they now look for more information so they look at your navigation, Lo and behold, they click.
Remember : Position a large rectangular block below the title, one at the bottom and one in the center if your content is long enough. Place Adlinks block on top of your navigation so that it looks like part of the navigation of your website.
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