User Experience 101
Whether you want to advertise your own ads or draw in clicks for AdSense, thinking about the overall user experience will help you establish a more effective ad placement strategy. There are endless website heatmaps that will point to the “best” advertisement placementsand this featurecould even determine your own website’s heatmap. To get a more detailed picture of where ads should go on your particular template, here are some important questions to consider.
Will I interrupt my user experience if I placed an ad here?: By putting yourself in the shoes of your visitors, you’ll easily determine whether or not an ad would make sense in the context of your website. Generally, ads within the sidebar and primary content work considerably well. When it comes to the primary content, however, it would be best to use good judgment in regards to overall user experience. If the square ad pushes your content to the bottom of the fold and ruins the overall flow of the piece, try moving it to the side or to the bottom of article, right above the comments section. That way, visitors will be able to focus on your content and see the ad before they engage with other page features.
Does my ad remove consumers from my website?: Ads that do not open in tabs or new windows take your user away from your current page indefinitely. If you can prevent this from happening, allow your ads to open in a new window. Replacing the current page entirely by taking the user to a new link is both troublesome and unfruitful.
Do these ads make my page look cluttered?: As briefly mentioned before, the overall page flow matters. This means it’s probably unwise to place ads in unnatural areas or areas that are already overcrowded with information. A cluttered page rarely makes for great user experience; the most powerful ingredient to ad placement. The more fulfilling the user experience, the more people will revisit your website and check out the content that you have to offer. Ads can play a wonderful role in all of this by making your page seem more legitimate when it’s placed in thoughtful areas.
Are these ads balanced with my level of content?:Do the ads offset your content bulk, or are there more distracting images and unrelated ads than there are primary content? Even if these ads are yours (let’s say you want to create portals to other blog posts on your website), creating too many advertisements could clutter the page and distract the user. For every 80% of primary content, compensate with 20% of interesting ads.
Ad placement is crucial to a website’s overall performance. A thoughtful webmaster would reroute the consumer to a related article or create such a clutter-free space that enhances both the ads and the content. To find out where you should place your ads, first try to see your website through the eyes of a newcomer.
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