Preventing Ad-blindness on Your Blog

The human mind doesn’t pore over every inch of your site, examining every image, reading every word and link. In fact, other than the content, readers take in very little. That’s why click-through rates on advertisements are so low (sometimes just a handful from a thousand impressions).

Once common and problematic pay-per-click (PPC) advertising myth is that more ads = more clicks – as if readers were clicking all over the page and simply need a bigger net to catch those clicks in. Not true. The more ‘stuff’ you push at your readers the less attention they’ll pay to each element. The ads will seem like nothing more than a blur.
Web users are very good at recognizing layout elements of little interest to them. The more ads you have, the more likely they are to be considered an obstacle and subconsciously blocked out.
Which brings me to the second problematic PPC advertising myth: that ads get more attention when they have a big swathe of space all to themselves.
Wrong again. The mind sees a cluster of ads surrounded by nothing of interest and ad-blindness kicks in. If anything, stacking the ads in one place makes this easier.
If you want visitors to give your ads the kind of attention you’d like, you need to do two things:

• Place high interest elements near your ads. These include category lists, popular articles lists, posts, inspiring quotes and so on. Attention has a radius – it will be focused on what’s important and leak into the surrounding area. A note, though: never place your ads so close to another element that a reader might accidentally click the ad when meaning to click something they else. The reader will feel tricked.

• Less is more. Ad-blindness tends to operate in broad strokes. Less and smaller advertising is unlikely to trigger ad-blindness as it’s generally lumped in with nearby layout elements. The less you have on the page overall, the more attention each element will get. Your ads will stand out rather than fading into the background.

The key is to experiment with your ad-placement – not just for a day, but for a week or so. Different locations, different ads and different combinations will perform at varying levels. Try fewer ads in more prominent locations. Try sandwiching your ads between elements of great interest to your readers.

De-cluttering can improve the performance of your ads

Readers have a definite amount of attention to give. Simplifying down to your blog’s essential, important elements will mean readers can divide their attention up into bigger portions. More attention given to PPC advertising will mean more clicks, as the reader needs to take in the message of the ad before they’ll be compelled to click it.

Fewer ads can mean more clicks

More ads means reader attention will be spread more thinly between them, possibly to the point where visitors aren’t taking in the message of any of your ads.
It’s better for you if they’re focusing closely on just one, rather than only partially registering the message of several. In addition to experimenting with ads in different locations, reducing the number of ads on your site could also be a worthy experiment.
What methods have you used to reduce ad-blindness on your blog?
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