Personal Finance and Investment

Adsense positioning for Bloggers

It’s self-evident, isn’t it - slap an advert, or several, bang in the middle of the viewport and increase your ROI or CPM or any acronym you care to name… or is it?

Yes, if you have a well-established site, lots of backlinks, stable traffic, then the positioning will play a predictable part in the metrics of it - the stuff about eye movements makes perfectly good sense. But if you’re not a super-powered problogger what then? How many visitors take one look at the PPC, get the distinct impression they’ve arrived at a MFA niche site and close, never to return again?

1 visitor sees a prominent ad and clicks it - 10 people see a prominent ad and think hmmm…

Their non-return, their refusal to bait your links, their lack of buzz-building, has to be factored into any consideration of the effectiveness of ad positioning. Sure, things vary according to the purpose and sector of the blog. I suspect that most blogs trying to build overdo it on the AdSense.

Douglas Karr discusses a sensible approach - top right justified ads within the post on the post page but not on the front page - and a small ad at that… Daily Blog Tips also give advice on getting the balance about right.

At the beginning, it’s much more important not to smother the content with ads.