Effective Ad Placement for More Advertisment Revenue
You have placed ads on your website, but they just aren’t generating revenue like you think they should. One factor that could be affecting your advertising effectiveness is the positioning of your ads on your site; some areas of a web page are simply more effective than others.
A whole area of scientific research is dedicated to eye tracking studies. Basically, through a device attached to a computer, researchers can track just how and where people are looking at on any page. They track the eye movements and record every place on the page it stops for any period of time. What they have discovered is in general there are certain areas of a page that people’s eyes tend to naturally gravitate to…namely the center!
You don’t really want to only place ads in the center of your page; that’s where your content should go! But wrapping content around advertising in the center (such as here) is a great use of space.
The next best area after the center of your page is the area directly above or to the left of your main content. The area just under your sites navigation bar (assuming your site has one) and the area just above your page’s footer are also good places. One important fact to keep in mind is most of the more effective ad placement areas are above what’s called the fold of the page or to put it another way, the top part of your page that people see without scrolling down. Think of it as a newspaper folded in half at a newstand. The top half gets all of the attention.
The next best place for advertising is the area just above your site’s navigation bar. The least effective area for an ad is on the far right-hand side of your page…funny that seems to be the most commonly used location for ads!
The image to the left shows where Google thinks Adsense should be most effective. The darker the color the more effective.
Google writes:
The formats we’ve found to be the most effective are the 336×280 Large Rectangle, the 300×250 Medium Rectangle, and the 160×600 Wide Skyscraper. Keep in mind that while these ad formats typically perform well, you should use the format that best complements your pages.
If the advertising on your site isn’t generating the revenue you think it should, try moving the ad to another location. Track that locations performance over a few months and repeat until you find that sweet spot for that particular ad.
