bestplace for placing ads

[successlieswithme]

Hello,
recently i got a plugin for wordpress,
which allows us to keep ads on our wordpress blog,
but it has good twist,

instead of placing ads in a specific place, it allows us to place ads anywhere in article, infact it displays ads randomly
top,middle, bottom
left,right, middle... in all these combinations...

do you suggest keeping ads in a single place or placing ads like this randomly?

which can give us better result?

thanks.

[Hobbs]

Wouldn't know,
but if you ant a guess, then I'd go for fixed location, following the heat map, also switch locations every 2 weeks and see which performs best.

[successlieswithme]

dont laugh,
but what is heat map?

[Hobbs]

nothing funny, glad you asked
[google.com...]

[DoingItWell]

Yes, the heat map is your friend. I'm pretty much setting up all ads on the top left these days because of its recommendations. Nice ctr's too.

[bts111]

Stick with the heat map ;)

[successlieswithme]

i didnt check it before,
but iam almost following heat map...

but mine is 2 sidebars wordpress blog,
one at left side and another at right side...

so do you suggest me to switching to 1 side bar one?

thanks.

[LunaC]

I hate to add just another "me to", but 6 months ago I redesigned one of my oldest sites and moved Adsense to one of the hot spots, CTR shot up by over 5 times original earnings for that site immediately. (And I do mean immediate, earnings for that day went up!)

I was shocked how much just moving it from the right column to the left improved income, and it has stayed up since.

I've since learned my lesson that placement (and color) is key. I still run tests trying different colors, sizes and placements to see what works best across each of my sites, but for me at least, the hotspots are dead on.

Another thing that I can verify (for my sites at least) is the "less is more" theory. From my tests, pages with 1 side bar banner (160x600 is working well) and 1 link unit at the bottom of the page after the content, far outperform pages with more ads.

[iwannano1]

It all depends upon your site design. The best place is put ad block 350x250 or 250x250 on left / right of content or middle of content. (heat map also suggest this).

Left sidebar also does well. If you have tons of content put 2/3 ad blocks and 1 ad unit; if have less content (less than 200 words) put 1 ad block and 1 ad unit. Again it all depends upon following factors
Traffic (most important)
Search engine traffic
Site design & usability

Don't keep changing ad posting for every load; fix position is good.

[koan]

It all depends upon your site design. The best place is put ad block 350x250 or 250x250 on left / right of content or middle of content. (heat map also suggest this).

It also depends on the type of site you're doing. Although I can imagine how these square ads in the middle of text provide the best CTR, I simply don't do it because it is too much "in your face" or "spammish" for my visitors. Reputation and long term popularity of my sites are more important to me than losing some CTR percentage.

[malachite]

Test, and see which ad position converts best for your site. Some here will swear by the heatmap, but the hottest spots don't necessarily work for all sites.

Koan is right; the square ads can look very spammy. As a surfer, if I visit a site which has a large rectangle before all else, I generally click back as obviously the webmaster considers the ad is more important than the content.

Subtlety can pay greater dividends in the long run :)

[iwannano1]

koan,

Agreed, Just a little correction .. it was regarding a quality content site. If it is a forum do not use to use 350x250/250x250 middle of the page. In fact I have only one ad block & 1 unit ad and content nothing else and it easily fetch good amount of money.

Again every site is different so it may or may not work for everyone.