Adsense - Tip #8: Put the ads in the hot positions
In a previous advice was said that we should think about the Google Adsense ads as complementary resources to the content, and in fact, because they are contextual advertising, the ads are related to the content of the page and therefore that increases the relevance and the attractiveness so the users are interested to click on the links that take them to the advertised websites. All this is very well, but if we don’t put the ads in the appropriate positions, probably we could be losing many potential clicks.
Several studies about the movement of the human eyes on a computer screen have been made in order to determine which areas are the best for the advertising. Many of those studies have a trend of favoring the left side of the content while the right side seems not to have a lot of attention.
However, the level of attention depends on many details and we cannot have anything conclusive for all the websites, because each website has different structure, design, fonts, images and colors and for that reason what is useful for a website could generate losses in another.
Actually, several successful websites with Google Adsense, have put the ads in the right rail. For example: Woot.com
Even the Google Adsense team in its optimization tips gives a base of what seem to be the areas with a successful trend (see image: more darker could mean more successful), but even so they know the results can be very different in several websites.
The thing that you should do is to apply the common sense to try to establish which areas could be really good for your Google Adsense ads by starting from your own conjectures about the website parts that catch more attention. Also, research the opinion of other people by doing experiments to see how much time they take to see certain parts of your website. The parts several people see quicker probably are the best points to position the ads.
When you have established those parts, put the ads. Choose the colors that match with your website and the appropriate block size (format).
After that, the most important thing is the mensuration of the performance by knowing the amount of money generated in each positioning. Conserve the ads in their positions during two weeks or one month and then change them to other positions. Continue experiencing so you can determine the best revenues by a iterative process during some months and keeping in mind the variations of your traffic (visits and pageviews).
You should keep in mind the variations of your traffic related to the number of visits and pageviews because if there is an abrupt variation, the revenues by Adsense could be more affected by this variation than by the change that you did in the positioning of the ads. Remember: common sense, experimentation and mensuration of results are vital in order to achieve the best positioning.
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