Internet advertising is a multi-million-dollar industry. It may still be considered in its infancy but Internet advertising is fast rising in popularity because this new medium has brought advertising to a whole new level of involvement and interactivity.
Because of the very nature of the Internet, any kind of advertising would also take advantage of the inherent features of the medium. For example, the Internet is the only medium where the possibility of tailor-fitting the kind of advertisements a visitor sees can be made possible because certain information about the visitor can be gleaned. For example, a visitor who frequents console gaming websites, is more likely to buy a game-related product that he sees bannered in the gaming website he visits.
One of the terms that you will encounter when you talk about advertising on the Internet is AdSense. AdSense is a program devised by Google that enables web publishers to display relevant Google ads on their websites in a manner that is both fast and easy. The ads that will be put on a web publisher's website is related to the kind of content or material that a website visitor is looking for on the site. AdSense allows a web publisher to not only enhance his website but also gives him a great way of earning money off it. AdSense also allows publishers to provide Google web and site search for the visitors in their website. One other money making feature is by allowing Google to display ads on the "Search Results" pages generated from a search string on the website.
Google AdSense is a really powerful way of handling web ads that ensure advertisers' message are successfully transmitted to website visitors. It has also shown how effective it is in providing a good revenue stream for web publishers. But what if you can actually maximize the effectivity of an ad so that it results in more visitors clicking on it, thus maximizing the possibility of making a sale? This would benefit not only an advertiser in terms of revenues generated by the sales, it would also be beneficial to a web publisher who shall enjoy more profits from the click throughs for the ads. This may sound like a pipe dream but it can happen. All you need to do is be aware of how your ads are constructed.
Believe it or not there is a science in the way an ad should be composed so that it will attract the most number of visitors and thus, get more clicks. The idea is simple and the solution is equally simple - make the ads look less like an ad and more like a part of the content of a web page.
Some people might think that this tactic is not being fair and actually an underhanded tactic to take advantage of the Google AdSense program's policies in order to bring in extra bucks.
The truth of the matter though is that it is not illegal. You, as a publisher or advertiser, is just trying to address and solve a limitation of the very nature of most web surfers - that is, they most likely suffer from what is called as banner blindness. Most people typically overlook anything that so much as remotely resembles an ad. The reason? They are constantly bombarded by advertising that they have a tendency to shut out any awareness for an ad when they surf even if technically they would be interested with what an ad has to offer. By using AdSense, you can determine that Internet visitors are actually maintaining their interest because the ads that are shown are related to the content placed inside the page. A visitor who clicks on an ad basically signifies her interest in whatever product or service the ad is offering.
The key towards successfully making more money with AdSense is not in hiding the obvious fact that the links you are presenting are ads. Rather, the trick is in putting the ads on the web page in such a manner that they will not be overlooked or ignored by a visitor.
One effective way of ensuring that a website visitor will not ignore your ad is by using the optimal ad format.
Based on surveys, the most popular format used for ads are the 336 x 280 and 300 x 250 ad sizes. The former receives the highest click through rate among all of the available ad sizes with the latter being a close second. All of the other available ad sizes are not clicked as much.
There is a very good reason why the two mentioned formats are more successful in capturing visitors' attention more than the other formats. And it has everything to do with banner blindness. As previously mentioned, banner blindness is a state when most Internet visitors, who are so used to seeing forms of advertising while they are surfing, would subconsciously ignore anything that would remotely resemble the shape of a piece of web advertising. Based on this, it is quite apparent that ad formats that follow the "traditional" measurements are going to be ignored by a majority of Internet users. The ad format that seems to suffer most from banner blindness is the 468 x 60 banner ad format, so as much as possible avoid using this. The 728 x 90 ad format is not as bad as the 468 x 60 but it still suffers from the banner blindness phenomenon although to a lesser degree.
The so called thin and tall ad formats ( the 120 x 240, 160 x 600 and 120 x 600 ad measurements) also get lower click through rates because of the simple fact that they do not fit well in any other parts of the page except on the right side or left side - which are traditionally used for the navigation section of a website. Considered to be the best place for an ad would be the middle of a web page, so try to get your ads placed in this area to ensure a high click through rate.