martinibuster - 8:50 pm on Nov 9, 2005 (gmt 0)

...ads are blended in the site so that it is difficult for the untrained eye to distinguish it from a regular link.

At last year's PubCon in Vegas I stated that ad units can be conceptualized as units of content. I still stand by that statement.

Some people have the knee-jerk reaction that AdSense is not content. I agree 100%, AdSense is not content. So back up and consider what I am really saying.

AdSense units can be conceptualized as blocks of content on the page.

EFV in another thread made a great point along the lines of understanding why a visitor is at your site and how that complements your content. He asked, are you reviewing things that people want to buy, and are your ads showing people where to buy it?

If you apply the matrix of AdSense as blocks of content, then you can see the picture clearer. Imagine a page as consisting of blocks of content. On one side you have navigation, in the center you have text. Up top you might have a leaderboard of AdSense. The content within the AdSense may tell people where they can buy something. Your content may not. The content within your text and the AdSense block is complementary.

Now imagine a page of chicken recipes with links to more chicken recipes. The AdSense units may show ads for more chicken recipes. These are blocks of content that are similar to your content. What do you do? Should you integrate them tighter? If you want the most clicks, probably. But I suspect that the earnings per click will go down because people are out there for a freebie recipe, not researching to buy a recipe book. So I would say that the ads are not complementary.

If on the other hand you build a page about utensils needed to cook a chicken, featuring reviews of great pots and pans and Henkel knives etc., then your ads will be complementary.

I believe that if you think of your Ads as blocks of content, it will becomes clearer not only how you should position those ads but also what is the best complementary content for those ads.

Imo it's not necessary to make your content stand out, so much to blend it as a unit of content just as you would blend your navigation or other unit of content.

I like this guy's website. It's simple and direct with obvious blocks of content laid out in a manner that is easy to follow.