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Johnson Yip operates a Windows and Linux computer help blog, writing about office suite software, computer security software, system utilities, multimedia software, web browsers. Johnson also publishes articles on content management systems, blogs, forums, and web design for beginners. Johnson comes here from a comment a while back, noting his Adsense results seemed to depend on background colors of the ad. I invited him to expand on that comment as a guest post.
Running ads? Consider your advertisement design
-by Johnson Yip
Many kinds of websites rely on advertisement for revenue.
For example, software download websites also use Adsense, and also advertise a wide range of freeware, shareware, online software or trialware in addition to the software on the current download page. These sites commonly integrate the advertisement into the website, resulting in a unified, clean layout for the site as a whole.
Readers tend to stay longer, revisit, or recommend sites which have clean layouts which look professional and easy to read. This can increase your chances of earning more from ad revenue from returning visitors.
If you have advertisements, especially ads running in your text, consider design explicitly incorporating ads. Designing your blog for ads is easy and obvious, but consider designing your ads as well.
Design your advertisements
I like to consider my ads as mini websites within my blog.
Since many pay-to-click advertising programs like Adsense also let you customize backgrounds, the font size, color, and font style, I can make sure the ads don’t contrast too much with the blog, yet still stand out enough to draw attention.
Typically, I match the ad font with a similar font and size which my website is using.
Also, I make the border of my ads white to make my website and ad blend well together with the blog content and links.
This model is proven by websites such as Facebook, Squidoo, Hubpages, Ezinearticles and other content-rich sites all of which use white backgrounds for both their ad and website background. Using white makes the website feel less cluttered and the ads blend well.
White also can be a very relaxing colour for some people, so they stay longer and you have a greater chance of getting ad clicks from visitors.
I also find Navy Blue for my ad links works well. It’s a noticeable color, but not overly bright like so many ads you see on the internet. Bright blue or sky blue are common ad colors, and readers may develop banner blindness, igoring ads rather than reading them.
Integration, not deception
Notice how hard it can be hard to find the real download link on download pages hosted on some download websites with white backgrounds like Softpedia which host freeware, shareware, and trialware? Tricky, right?
Users feeling tricked and might not return to your site. And that’s bad for future earnings from ad clicks.
But blending your ads with font and background helps improve your reader’s experience; such changes make your blog nice to visit.
Mixing your ads too close to your content might get more clicks, but it can be against the terms of service for some advertising networks, so I usually don’t mix my ads so close to my regular content.
Since I don’t want readers to be confused about which links are mine, and which are advertisements, I leave one blank line to separate my ads from my content.
Result from ad redesign
In summary, I:
- matched the blog font and advertisement font, in size and weight;
- made the ad borders white;
- matched the advertisement and blog background colors.
The Adsense ads are now less bright and annoying, and blend well with the rest of my page and content.
These design changes helped increase my Click Through Rate by a measurable 0.5%. Every little bit helps!
Plus, my content is still easily readable since it is not covered in ads.
What’s your experience with advertisement design? If you haven’t ever thought about it, has this been helpful? If you have designed ads, what happened?
Johnson Yip
enjoys volunteering at Free Geek Vancouver
a computer recycler charity reducing
the amount of electronic waste by fixing old computers
for non-profits and sell to the needy. In his spare time he
enjoys web design, playing video games,
and watching movies. Visit Johnson at his
Computer Repair Tips blog.
