| |
| |
|
Integrating Advertising into Your Web Design
If you are going to be placing ads on your website, you'll want to put some thought into how you'll integrate them. Poor integration of ads into your website will cause visitors to click away fast. Successful integration of ads into your site can be highly profitable. Before I show you where to position ads, I want to mention a few important points about ads. 1. Ratio of ads to content How many ads should you place on your website? There is an optimum ratio of ads to content. If your website has too high a proportion of advertising relative to content, the traffic on your website will suffer and you will lose money. If your website has too low a portion of advertising relative to content, the sales on your website will suffer and you will lose money. What is the optimum ratio of ads to content? I can't point to any studies, but I feel the optimum ratio is somewhere around 20 to 25 percent ads relative to content. Go much above that ratio and, despite more ads, the revenue from your site goes down. But, there are ways to exceed that ratio and still make more money. Ads as a service Advertisements can provide useful information, as well as content. In that case, the ads become content. Here's an example. Rather than post ads that pay you the highest commission, post ads that provide the best value to the visitors to your website. These are ads where the value is so good you might respond to the ad yourself. This type of ad is more of a service than an advertisement. Another example is ads for gifts around the holidays. People expect and are not turned off by an increase in ads around the holidays. Finding gifts for everyone on your list is difficult work, and people appreciate gift ideas. Again, this type of ad is more of a service than an advertisement. You can safely exceed the normal ratio of ads to content if you hide the ads in the content. An example of this is product "reviews". For example, computer magazines are almost 100 percent advertising posing as product reviews. 2. Repetition of ads and ad management I have seen websites that display the exact same banner on every page. If I didn't respond to the banner on the first page, what makes them think I will repond to it on the second, third ... hundredth page? Displaying the same banner on every page of your website is annoying to your website's visitors, and a money losing propostion for you. Keep your ads fresh. Ads are boring enough without repeating the same ad over and over. Display a variety of ads, and use an ad management system. An example of an ad management system is a banner rotator. 3. Ad type relative to response rate I have heard claims that text ads receive the highest reponse. I'm sure these results are not related to whether the ad is text or graphics, but more likely related to the fact that text ads are usually placed in the more responsive areas of a webpage. All thing being equal, a graphic ad will always get better response than a text ad. A graphic ad will get higher response than a text ad, and an animated graphic ad will get higher response than a static graphic ad. But animation can be taken to an extreme. Some types of animation are annoying and not only does the ad get a low response, but it also causes visitors to click away from your website. Examples of annoying animated ads are banners that flash or jiggle or do something else that distracts the visitor so they can't read the webpage content. Those visitors that don't click away will scroll the webpage so this type of ad goes off screen while they try to read the webpage. A secret few advertising designers know is that the graphic that will get the most attention is a picture of a human face. People are genetically predisposed to look at a human face in their view area. Try it yourself while you're browsing the web. If a webpage has a human face on it, that's the first thing you will look at. Where to position ads on your webpage To discuss where to place ads on a webpage, we need to divide a page into five sections as listed below. Note: There is a sixth area of the webpage which is the popup window. There are many forms of popup windows; pop-over, pop-under, delayed, and exit. The polite way to use popup windows is the self-closing popup window. Because of popup window blockers, popup windows are much less effective today, and, from my own experience, when I tried using popup windows, the page views on my website dropped by 50 percent. The most common position to place advertising banners is in the header section of a webpage. Web users have programmed themselves to ignore banners in this position. The response rate of banners in the header section of webpages has dropped to something like .0001 percent. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has tried to overcome this problem by defining giant (what I call "battleship size") banners. I don't know of any studies that show this works. Using banners in the head section of your webpage is a waste of processor time, but most webpages still use them. Making a sale this way is a long shot. Banners in the footer section of a webpage are even less responsive. Actually Web users have programmed themselves to ignore all advertising on the web. However, from my own experience, you can get some response from ads in the left and right margins of a webpage. Most websites are designed with the menu in the left margin and possibly ads in the right margin. This means if the user has a low resolution display, depending upon the width of the webpage, the advertising may be off the screen. Place your menu in the right margin and use the left margin for advertising. This places the user with a low resolution display in the positon of having to scroll to view the menu. Too bad. They should get a bigger display. Website revenue comes first. The most responsive position to put your ads is in the center column of the webpage along with the content. As visitors are reading the article on the webpage, they come upon the ad. It's unavoidable. If you imagine the center column of your webpage divided into three parts; top, middle, and bottom, the most responsive position for your ad will be right in the middle. As the visitors are reading the article on the webpage, they are forced to look at the ad as they continue to the lower part of the article. This might be a little annoying to the reader, but let's hope your content is worth that slight annoyance. I would recommend placing your ad at the bottom of the center column. As visitors read the article on the webpage, they end up looking at your ad. This is almost as effective as placing the ad in the middle of the column, and a lot less annoying to the reader. As you can see, how you integrate advertising into your webpages has a major impact on your ability to produce revenue from your website. Poor ad integration will cause visitors to click away. Proper integration can make your website highly profitable. But, ad positon is not the only determining factor, don't forget the ratio of ads to content, ad management, and ad type relative to response rate. Copyright(C) 2004 Bucaro TecHelp. Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included. About The Author Stephen Bucaro To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com. To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter visit http://bucarotechelp.com/search/000800.asp
MORE RESOURCES: Early greats of web design Boing Boing Digital Silk Announces U.S. Companies Prioritize Custom Web Development to Meet Accessibility and SEO Demands Yahoo Finance Code Charley Corp Launches Ambitious Web Design Project to Elevate Industry Influence FinancialContent Framer Launches AI Features to Supercharge Web Design, Democratizing How Stunning Websites are Built Business Wire Unveiling the invisible hand: how AI is reshaping web design UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Designers! Did you know you can use Canva to build a beautiful website? Here's everything you need to know Creative Bloq Web Design Trends for 2025 crescentvale.com Web Pacific Lutheran University Happtiq Website Design Analysis DesignRush Shaga Odyssey Website Design Analysis DesignRush Best Web Design Companies Forbes Taylor Swift uses unlikely design element to drop major Easter egg – is Reputation coming? Creative Bloq California Privacy Penalties Focus on Quality Checks, Web Design Bloomberg Law News ChatGPT was tasked with designing a website. The result was as manipulative as you'd expect Fast Company 8 Best Apps for Web Designers in 2025 DesignRush 11 Best Blue Website Designs of 2025 DesignRush 11 Best Interactive Website Designs in 2025 DesignRush California Tourism Leverages Interactive Web Design to Engage Gen Z and Millennial Travelers: You Need to Know Travel And Tour World 16 Best Modern Website Designs of the Moment DesignRush 18 Best Tech Website Designs in 2025 DesignRush Web 3.0 And The Evolution Of Website Design: What You Need To Know Harlem World Magazine 10 Best Medical Website Designs (2025) DesignRush The Future of Web Development: Trends and Technologies on the Horizon IoT Business News Digital Services John Guilfoil Public Relations Digital Silk Helps California Automobile Brands Redefine Online Showrooms with Interactive Web Design Yahoo Finance Web Design Statistics By UI/UX, Market Size, Web Development, Industry and Demographics Coolest Gadgets Revolutionizing Web Design: How Squarespace's Design Intelligence AI Empowers Creators Boy Genius Report Case Study | How to Create the Perfect E-Commerce Site | BoF The Business of Fashion 11 Best Minimalist Websites for 2025 DesignRush |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Increase Your Conversion Rate or What Most People Miss When It Comes To Optimization Everybody talks about the importance of testing your sales copy or a page layout. After all, proper testing can help you modify your page in a way that will drastically increase your conversion rate. Why Use Professional Web Site Designers For Your Next Web Development Project? Probably you know someone who has created a web site all by himself or herself. So if they can do it why use a professional at all? Can't you create your own business or organization's web site in your spare time and without the services of a professional web site designer? The answer is probably, yes. Fast Web Design For The Skint Webmaster About two years ago, I had a go at commercial web site design. I put a medium-sized ad in a London classified ad paper. Positive Design Attributes for a Successful Website Designing a website is hard job, and requires you to think out a plan of action, and put in a lot of work to make it successful. There are many different kinds of websites on the Internet, but if you look at all the top performers with high traffic, you will notice that they all have similar design characteristics which place them as the best in the world. Dont Lose The Sale In The Internets Last Three Feet In retailing there is a saying that sales are made in the last three feet. What this means is that no matter what you have done with your marketing, the final purchase decision is made when a customer is in-store, with the product in front of them. Banner Enchancement - Designing Your Banner A well designed web site is great to have, but what if no one ever comes to it? Most web sites either rely on advertising, or have used advertising at some point in their existence, to get people to come to view the site. This means that your going to have to have not only a well designed web site but also well designed banners to attract your visitors. What to Avoid to Make Your Website Design Effective The effective design is this one, which is maximum simplified, conformable to your users because they are your main purpose. This one, simply and clearly announcing what is your website about. Flash Doesnt Always Add Shine to Web Efforts The trend today to overuse animation in a website's opening pages only serves to confirm that style often overshadows substance. Sometimes a "flash" in the pan - often courtesy of Macromedia Corp. Using Your Personal Website To Clinch That Job! With an increasing number of employment portals emerging, it is apparent that internet tools do help bring the job-seeker and the potential employer together. A sophisticated job search engine enables the job-seeker to have a smaller sample of relevant job openings instead of going through countless newspaper advertisements. Orient Your First-time Web Site Visitor Imagine spinning someone around so profoundly and for so long that when you finally tell them to open their eyes, they ask "Where am I?" not knowing if they are even on the same continent they started from. When someone comes to your web site from a search engine or through a link from another site, it's like that for them. Why You Should Hire a Professional Website Designer Your web site should always adhere to standards!A professional web site designer will provide you with a standard compliant web site that is cross-browser supported.What does this mean to you? Why should you care? Any site that isn't standard compliant can "break" in older browsers, or simply not display at all in, say, text-based browsers. The Top 8 Website Sins Part One They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Your website then is the window to your business. How To Create A Homepage That Works Want to know what the worst thing to say on a homepage is?"Welcome to our homepage."And yet, time after time, we all come across such homepages on the Internet. The Importance of Choosing Your Website Keywords Carefully The importance of choosing your website keywords carefully is very high. The reason for this is many search engines rely on keywords, at least partially, to help determine the rank of your web page when certain keywords are searched for. Design Your Site For Your Customers The most important person that you need to please when you design your site is your potential customer. I can not stress that enough. Your Website Could be Letting You Down A professionally presented business website is a powerful and essential marketing tool: it's the first thing prospective customers will look at before they decide to contact you.If the copy on your website is not written to an acceptable standard, it may be losing you customers. Bad Web Design: ActiveX ActiveX uses an interesting method for enforcing security .. Web Publishing Guide for the Beginning Entrepreneur (Part 1) The best things don't come easy. - QuotedThe finished web pages in your hands could be likened to a painting by Michelangelo without the Sistine Chapel. Use Exclusive Content - When Reprint Articles Dont Do Enough There is no doubt that reprint articles can serve lots of search engine traffic to your site.. Do-It-Yourself or Hire a Professional Designer Remember your vision for your company and the brand or statement you want to make when any of your current or potential customers come in contact with you. You have to impress them in all the ways you connect with them.
|
| home | site map |
| Webdesign-box © 2006 |