Beginners guide to positioning of online adverts
Written/updated by Thomas Skov Iversen
Adverts and commercials is a good way of earning money of your website. However, this only applies if you know where to place these adverts. The right positioning of adverts is one of the most important aspects when it comes to profiting from your website. This actually makes a lot of sense, since adverts that are being poorly positioned will not be seen and clicked as they should.
On the other hand a great position of an advert will not generate any clicks if your advert do not relate to the users of your site. If you as an example have adverts about car parts on a bicycle site, then your click through rate (CTR) will quite possibly be very low. A good advert position therefore can not cure a faulty combination of adverts and website content.
In this article the top 5 best positions of adverts will be explained. It should though be mentioned that other positions can also be beneficial, as the best positions highly depends on the structure of your own website. In addition you should not place adverts all five places because for instance Google Adsense do not allow more than 3 of their adverts per page. So pick your own top 3 and try to fit them into your own personal site. Below the top 5 best advert positions are described. The positions have been visualized in the picture below.
1 - To the left, under the menu
If you have a left menu like shown in the picture, then an advert below that menu is highly optimal. When a user uses your menu to navigate your site, the chances are that they will also notice the advert. If the advert then also have some relevancy in connection to the website content, the likelihood of a click will be high. Ads that could fit well in this area could be a vertical advert measuring 120*600 or 160*600. This is the best choice of advert position as visitors will most probably see this advert no matter how long they spend on your site.
2 - Inline with the first paragraph
Another great place of positioning your adverts are inline with the first paragraph or other content. This is a good position as visitors come to read your content. When they then start reading they will go from left to right starting at the top. If your advert is placed at the top where visitors will start reading, the advert will have a high likelihood of been seen and clicked.
3 - Right beneath the title/heading
Usually the heading or title will have some sort of special styling, that will make it more apparent. If an advert is placed right under this heading, then the visitor will most likely also see the advert when he reads the heading.
4 - Under or next to a picture
Pictures draw peoples attention, we all know that. So why not take advantage of this and place an advert next to or under a picture. Try to avoid animated pictures as visitors will think that they are also advertisements.
5 - Right beneath the last paragraph
Finally, this is the last position in our top 5 for beginners. When people are done reading they will naturally look for new content. Therefore it is a good idea to place an advert at the end of a paragraph, as people will be ready for new content at this point. If the advert then relates to what the visitor have just read, then the chances of a click will be extremely high.
Conclusion
We have now described the top 5 best positions of online adverts. Off course these positions is not universal, and you might find that some other positions fit your site better. However this is a general top 5, and you can be sure that visitors will see your adverts if they are placed in one of the 5 main positions.
The next article will describe how you can boost your search engine rank and traffic with the use of Search engine optimization (SEO).
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