You don’t see the Ads on this page. They aren’t there. They are invisible. Since they are invisible make sure you don’t click on them.
There is an ongoing debate in the blogosphere about putting Google ads on your blog. Some bloggers such as Steve Pavlina have many Adsense ads on their site while others such as Yaro Starak have moved away from them all together.
Erik Vossman over at Good at Everything has taken a middle of the road approach. He writes…
I find Google ads to be helpful at certain times although I don’t tend to click and them often when I am on other blogs. I go for the articles not the click through. My goal with this weblog is to have many return readers who find my insights helpful. Therefore for the next couple of months I will keep the ads to a minimum. I may find that bringing them back is a good idea but only when readers find me helpful to read.
I like Erik’s approach. I have found Google Ad’s to be effective at times but require a lot of work to match the current content of my blog. I have had to block over 100 different ads to cut down on content that doesn’t meet my standards that I have set up for this site. And most ads just become invisible to regular readers. So what does Google say to make Adsense more effective? They have a heat sheet that points out the hot spots for ads on a site. The most effective place… right here in front of your face in the middle of this article. You can’t miss them. They are in your way and in your face.
Ads in the middle of content are irritating, like a child leaving their skates on the floor for you to trip over. You trip… you get mad. But when you trip, you’ll pick up the skates and move them out of the way. When ads are in the middle of content you are much more likely to see them and think about them. And then you do the unthinkable… even though you are irritated with them being in your face as you are trying to read… you click on one.
Your curiosity gets the best of you…
What is that ultra low rate on a home loan?
Where is that timeshare resale for only $500?
What is that new success strategy guaranteed to make you more productive?
You click… you see the ad website… and you buy the product or service a certain percentage of the time.
It’s human nature and a very effective strategy for Google who is valued at over 8 billion dollars.
Google has a policy against clicking on your own ads. The other day there was an ad that showed up on this blog that was real interesting to me. It was about a new CSS editor and I had to know more about it. I couldn’t click on it or I would void my TOS agreement with Google. The ad had no visible URL so I was in a quandry. How could I see the ad site?
I realized the only solution was to fire up Internet Explorer and use the Adsense preview tool. I fired up IE and was able to view the site and download the new tool. Unfortunately I’m a big Firefox fan and I was rather dismayed to have to open IE to see the ad. The advertiser almost lost a sale…
My question is… should I subject my readers to in-your-face ads?
I would love to hear your comments…
Oh by the way… resist the temptation to click on that weight loss ad… you really can’t lose 10 pounds in a week… at least I don’t think you can??
