Optimising banner placement

Posted in Banner Advertising     

Optimising banner placement

As an affiliate you have a great site. You are targeting the relevant demographic but there is a problem; the merchant’s banners are still not getting the desired amount of click-throughs from your visitors!

In many cases this can simply be due to an inappropriate or ineffective placement of the banners on your site.

Below are some handy tips to help you optimise the placement of your advertising on your site.

Placing on the home page:

It is generally accepted that banners placed on a site’s homepage will generate more clicks than those placed deeper in the site.

Top left placement:

Given that we read from left to right, top to bottom it is a given that we will generally notice ads placed near the top of the page on the left hand side first! (For non-western languages this would obviously be different)

Banners that are placed near the important, primary content of a site tend to be more successful as well.

Placing above the fold:

Banners that are displayed ‘above the fold’ tend do better than those placed below the fold. This basically means that any ad banner that is visible instantly when arriving on a site (i.e. one does not need to scroll down to see it) has a higher likelihood of being clicked on.

Banner colour and design:

This is probably one of the most important factors to consider when placing banner advertising on your site. You would want to go for well designed, classy and arresting banners. Wherever possible avoid banners that look cheap and cheesy.

Consider also the colour and scheme of your site itself and try and match this as much as possible when selecting your banner. You don’t want a banner that looks completely out of place on your site.

Depending on what company you are advertising you may be able to approach them to get some custom banners made up for your site.

Animated banners:

Animated banners are considered more successful at generating clicks than simple, static banners. This is because they grab the visitor’s attention more than a static image. Keep this in mind when selecting banners to display on your site.

File size:

Ideally you would want to use banners that don’t take too long to load. Especially when visitors are quickly clicking through the content of your site, a banner that takes too long to load can miss potential views. Aim for displaying banners between 10kb and 20kb in size if possible. This will become less relevant as more people turn to faster internet connections around the world.

Banner size:

When selecting a banner for your site one of the most obvious considerations is the dimensions of the banner. As the banner adverts will have to fit around the content of your site you will have limitations in terms of the sizes that you will be able to utilise. If you can go bigger, though, please do! Larger ads generally get better responses than smaller ones. The 336×280 rectangle ad banner in particular has been singled out as being one of the more successful sizes to display.

Avoid clutter:

Sometimes less is more and when it comes to banner advertising it can sometimes be better not to overload your page with different advertising. This can confuse viewers and result in fewer clicks. By having a few well placed ads on your page you can maximise your visitors attention thus hopefully increasing the click-throughs.

Conclusion:

Don’t hesitate to play around with the banners on your site to maximise your advertising revenue. While there are no hard and fast answers, if you start by following the above guidelines you will certainly be heading in the right direction. Remember that the success of banner placement is an ongoing, dynamic process and will require constant experimentation.