Jun 16 2007
Design Tips
Design tips tell you how to incorporate ads in your pages. They also tell you what settings you should play with while making your ads.
Design sense
For years we’ve used conventional banners on our sites and this has created a subconscious effect on net surfers — they simply don’t see the ads anymore. The trick to overcome this problem is to not let your visitors get used to ad blocks on your page. You can change the position and format of the ads on your site when you feel your regular visitors are getting too comfortable with the placement of your ads.
Check out the different Ad Formats Google provides.
The better Ad Format?
There has been much debate about which ad-formats work better. According to Google wider ad formats work better than their taller counterparts because it they are easier to absorb rather than a tall ad unit where every ad is separated by a line break. In these lines the 336×280 Large Rectangle, 300×250 Medium Rectangle, and the 160×600 Wide Skyscraper tend to work better.
But it is better to use logic and choose ads that best suit the design of your site.
Google Heat Map
The placement of advertisements is very crucial in getting more clicks on your ad. Remember just because you have placed ads on your pages doesn’t mean the visitor is seeing all of them. The visitor’s attention span is very limited and he might eventually move exit the page before he has seen your ads. When you place multiple ads on a single page, Google automatically displays the higher paying ads first and then the lower paying ones. Which means if you have a leaderboard, a banner and then a medium rectangle at the bottom of the page; the leaderboard will be assigned the higher paying ad and the medium rectangle the lowest for that page. So it is important that you place the leaderboard in the most favorable position. This is why some webmasters don’t recommend placing more than two ads on a page because you might lose out your clicks to lower payouts. The google heat map is a good indicator of where your ad is most likely to catch the viewer’s attention.
Blend or stand out?
When choosing color palettes for your ads you can blend; complement or contrast the shades with the colors palette of your page. Blending implies making the background and borders of your ads the same color as the background of your page. Complement your ads by using colors that already exist on your site, but don’t match the background and borders exactly where the ads are placed. Contrasting implies choosing colors that stand out against the background of your site.
Which works best? Trial and error. Check your reports and see which works best for your site. Sites that have a lot of content and ads genereally should choose contrasting colours so that the ads are attract attention at some point of time. If your site’s visitors consist mainly of repeat visitors try rotating the colors or changing ad placement as mentioned before.
Remember however, do not conceal your ads or place link-units near navigation bars which will confuse viewers and attract inadvertent clicks.
Visibility Factor
Make sure your ads are visible to the surfers in all screen formats. Some websites need horizontal scrolling to view ads. If you put the ads in a table give sufficient breathing space; sufficient cell padding and cell spacing to make the ads stand out from the rest of your content.
Relevant Text = Relevant Ads
Don’t place Google ads on pages which has little or no text at all (including pages with full flash content). You can probably place ads from other programs on such pages.