Throwing Away Visitors for Fun: Wrath of Advertising

Your blog or website is your front door, if people are not happy with it, they will leave as I do in many circumstances when I encounter a bad blog. So, what makes a bad blog? There are many answers to this, but I will cover the main topics which are of the highest importance. This includes discussions concerning chicklets, advertising, visual aesthetics of blogs and organization of content. Advertising
The advertising on many blog sites could be considered as shocking and awful. Many bloggers still believe that they can make money with their site by slapping twenty banners down the side of their blog, but this is simply no longer the case. No one wants to come to a site where the content is worth ¼ or less of the front page…you are saying bye to your very valuable visitors before they have even gone into the living room of your house. Not only the new ones…
I must point out that not only newbies are at fault, some blogs which have a considerable amount of readers are not allowing themselves to get more reader subscriptions because they have a site which is plastered in ads, you some adsense in their post, an excessive amount of 125×125 ads (8+) and they don’t stop there, they decide to chuck in some large banners of other sites on their header, another few down a column etc…I agree, you have to monetize your site, but please, do it in a way that blends in well (JohnChow and CourtneyTuttle are good examples they have blended ads in their blogs very well). What do I do to make the visitor want to stay at my site? Don’t be too proud of your site that you are scared to change it, you have to change it around to at least see what happens. My tips for you to make your visitors stay longer

• If you have a lot of 125×125 box ads (8+), please consider reducing them or finding a way to blend them in more.
• If you have slapped a Google AdSense ad in the centre of the page without having blended it into content, remove it or blend it in.
• If you have a very LOW readership (1 to 50), do NOT display it, if you are displaying it you are only telling people to leave your site (Recent Article on my website – Throwing Away Visitors For Fun http://smallfishbigmoney.com/2007/10/12/throwing-away-visitors-for-fun/)
• Make use of your post categories, STOP using a calendar system (If you made 60 posts in October, you are sending readers on a wild goose chase!
• Implement a search system on your site if you have not, they are very effective
• Use a READABLE FONT (Arial or Verdana does the trick) Over 55% of bloggers use this font!
• JUSTIFY your post content, it is extremely helpful.
• Have a search function which is very well sign posted.

Blend it in…
Last but not least, just make everything fit in together with each other, all ads and banners should be similar sizes, nested in a corner of the site. All content should be legible; there should not be any distracting ads. As John Chow recently said “people are still coming to his website even though he has lots of banners and buttons…why? John says it’s because you have to make it fit in with your overall site design and theme, if it does not fit in, this is when you lose visitors”Thanks, www.smallfishbigmoney.com – Learn the Trade, Do it Right.

Posted on October 13, 2007
Filed Under Traffic Building Tips |

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