Page length and the hotspot

or .. should we cut pages in two to kept the focus

[OddDog]

Hi all,

I have a new site that does how to widget step by step guides.

Each guide is approx 850 words. High quality content (done by a professional in widgets who freelanced for me).

So I place an adsense 250*250 box under the H1 tag and the content starts on the right of the ad block and then flows down underneath it to occupy all the content column. Right in the HOTSPOT. But these guides are long. In fact they are 3 full screens (at 1024 * 800) of info (3 full screens of downward scrolling). Bang goes the hot spot. I realise that a bottom banner at the end of the content is a possible solution, but I like to get the best paying ads, which is why I will only show 3 ads ( not blocks) on a content page.

So I have decided that I am going to break the content into 2 pages.

And I was hoping others would post about there experience with this dilema.

[Sweet Cognac]

For some reason, we haven't had good luck with splitting pages. I refuse to do it anymore. I don't know if Goog thinks it's dup cont or what.

The best we have come up with is a large square right after the second paragraph. or just below the fold, on the second scroll. It seems visitors will just read a couple paragraphs and then click to go somewhere else.

We had a large leaderboard at the bottom, but it hasn't been working since goog only put one ad in it.

[OddDog]

thanks for the info ...

I think I will do some A B testing.

I have 50 USA state step by step guides to widgets, will do 25 as single pagers, and 25 as broken into several pages.

In about a week I will have enough info to see what is best for this site.

But I remain interested in others opinions and experience with this matter.

[ken_b]

If you only want to show 3 ads per page you could change the top block to a 120x240 and add a 234x60 or 125x125 at the bottom of the page.

[OddDog]

Hi Ken,

yes it is possible to break the ads down into different blocks-shapes ect ...

but what is my principal concern is keeping the ads in the hotspot.

I get a low 20% CTR by agressively going for the hotspot. That is worth worrying about!

[ken_b]

One thing I think we have to remember about those "hot spot" example layouts is that they are more or less reduced to the lowest common denominator.

The hot spots on a page that is 3+ screens long will be different than those on a 1 or 2 screen page. And the google example is 1 or 2 screens depending on screen resolution used by the visitor.

One approach might be to think in terms of screens rather than, or at least in addition to pages.

Doing that, every 700 - 900 or so pixels down the page results in a "page break", so to speak. At that point, I wonder if the hot spots might be repeated, as if it is a new page.

Just something to think about.

[bumpski]

... but I like to get the best paying ads, which is why I will only show 3 ads ( not blocks) on a content page.

You are probably getting the ads with the highest click through, not necessarily the ads that pay the most. IMHO more ads provide a greater chance to have a higher paying click, not less chance.

Try 3, 5 ad skyscrapers down one column. (You can see the hot spot is on the left). This will cover a good bit of your content, and you might find the best paying ads are nowhere near the top of the column.

Put up the skyscrapers (suggest "text only" for the first two) then review the ads, and you will probably be able to infer which ads would pay the most. They probably won't be on top!

I agree that cutting pages seems to do more harm than good, perhaps unless it's done from the creation of the content. I think when you split pages there may be a slight duplicate content penalty.