Sites with ads that pass the test

The previous post discussed ads annoying readers. Here is the other side of the coin: how some sites manage to display ads without being intrusive.

Instead of tricking their readers into clicking on them or forcing them to jump a flashing banner in the middle of a post, savvy bloggers dedicate a column for ads, paid links and banners. At least if you are interested in some commercial products, you know where to look and because their posts are ad-free and are a pleasure to read. As a result, readers come back regularly for more.

If you are interested in shoes and are reading a blog post on shoes and see an ad about the latest fashionable shoe, would you be interested in clicking on it? Equally, if you simply enjoy reading about shoes just to gather more information or for leisure, an ad selling shoes would not be of interest to you. If the ad is on a side column, you will easily ignore it by focusing on the article.

Here are a couple of examples of how bloggers do it. Yoast.com is a site on Wordpress. Ads are on the right hand side and don’t even run into a column.

Mastersofseo.com features a column on the right running from top to bottom with ads. The ads are clearly separated from the posts with a giant 3-D like vertical banner that contains navigational links. Result: One side of the site for posts and the opposite side for ads.

You can produce the best content in the word but if you are like about.com or ehow and push in ads within the post, you will simply put off users who will look elsewhere for a better quality site. Writers and publishers need to earn money, but they also need to attract and retain readers. If there are no readers, ads are useless. Yet the two, ads and readers, do not have to be incompatible. Place ads in a dedicated area on your site.