This advice post on including visual and written ads on your site is still quite relevant–check out my tips for how to make ads an extension of your site rather than just a necessary evil!
Tag Archives: ads
Hits Don’t Really Matter
Uh oh! Unpopular opinion alert! I just said website hits don’t really matter!
Even though I get tons of spammy emails and comments telling me I need to “backlink” and “up my Google ranking” (which sounds uncomfortable and/or rude, LOL), I actually will dare to say that the sheer NUMBER of hits our sites get doesn’t matter.
Why? Well, there are a couple of major reasons:
#1: A Five-Second “Visit” is Not a Visit
Web statistics record every visit, even if somebody’s just on your site for a few seconds; this doesn’t mean that anybody’s actually staying around to really SEE your site and get meaning out of it. In fact, most quick visits are Web crawlers/robots anyway!
Instead of focusing on the number of hits, look at how long each visitor stays on your site(s). Long visits mean that someone out there is ENJOYING your content–which is what all us webdesigners want!
#2: No Comments and No Repeat Visitors is a Bad Sign
If you get a few longer-duration hits, but none from the same IP address, it can mean that people are visiting your site and finding no reason to come back. Likewise, if you’ve got no repeat commenters, your site is interesting, but not interesting enough to warrant a second comment.
Instead, look for the number of times an IP address pops up in your site statistics per month. If IPs show up more than once, you know you’ve got someone’s attention out there. Also, people who come back to comment a second or even third time are likely engaged with your content and are enjoying it.
How to Get Meaningful Visits and Keep People Returning
- Don’t just post your link on random sites that have nothing to do with your content. Advertising in this spammy, selfish way will make people think your site is full of spam, too!
- Affiliate or link-exchange with sites that are similar to yours, so that you drive traffic to each other’s sites.
- Another great way to advertise: get active in forums and online communities that are relevant to your topic, and mention your site as something others in the community would like to visit.
- Keep making content, and keep your site updated. Fresh content gives your visitors something to keep coming back for–update at least once a week and post the newest content prominently on your front page. (Plus, a layout/design update every six months to a year is a good idea!)
Summary
Don’t just chase after a certain number of “hits” to your website–instead, seek out meaningful connections with your users, and you’ll find your website being visited a lot more often. After all, numbers don’t mean everything in this business!
Making Ads Less…”Ad”-y
I’ve toyed with the idea of putting lots of ads or sponsored posts on my sites for years, but I’ve rarely if ever gone through with it. On the one hand, I’d love to make a little money off these labors of love, but on the other hand, I’d rather not clutter up my sites with ugly or annoying ads that will drive away the visitors I do get.
This is a common concern for many webdesigners: how do we make ads/sponsored posts less…well, “ad”-y? How do you incorporate them seamlessly into your design, so that people notice them but don’t get distracted by them? How do you make them fit with your site, rather than having to fit your site around them?
As I have puzzled over this for my own personal benefit, a few salient points came to mind (ones which I may or may not put into action over the next few months). If you’re considering using ads or sponsored posts as part of your website, here are some things to think about:
Choose ads that are relevant to your site.
Nothing is more distracting than going to a favorite website and seeing a huge animated ad for random pills or e-books blaring at you from the sidebar or top of the page. When possible, choose ads that go with your site content, because it will be more interesting to your users. For instance, an ad about the latest video game controller wouldn’t suit a medical site, but it would work beautifully on a gaming site!
Try to tame visual ads’ “gaudiness factor.”
Lots of flashing colors, bad font choices, and low-quality pictures tend to plague visual ads, and to some degree a designer/developer can’t change those design choices (much as we would like to!). But you can still place flashy ads on an attractively-designed sidebar, so they’re visible and eye-catching, but they don’t actually interfere with regular content.
(Important: Avoid ads that block content, either as a pop-up window or one of those God-awful slide-in ads that gray out the rest of the screen. I can’t stand those things, and I’m sure I’m not the only user who does. Ads that don’t make the user look at them are best.)
Endorse products you’ve personally tried.
This is a pet peeve of mine: Don’t just randomly endorse a product in a blog post because the people behind the product are going to pay you mega bucks. If I’m a regular user of your website and see that kind of post, I want to know why you like that product, not just “Hey, buy this product, it’s cool–here’s a link, bye.”
It may be harder to choose to write about a product that may not pay you as much, but the company will likely be happier with your ad for them, especially if your passion for the product encourages more business.
Add anecdotes from your testing of the product you’re advertising.
Going off the last point: tell a story about your use of whatever product you’re writing about. If I’m a regular visitor, I probably already appreciate your honest opinion on things, and I enjoy your writing style–why not show off your ability to share your opinion by telling about your first experience (or seventieth experience) of the product? I’m sure I could write some pretty and informative prose about my favorite shampoos and favorite jeans than I could ever write about a mascara brand I’ve never tried, for instance.
Summary
Make ads and sponsored posts a true extension of your site, and make them meaningful and useful to your users. Junky, purely annoying ad content should be a definite thing of the past!