Optimal adsense banner placement

[baldidiot]

Ok so not strictly gambling or affiliate marketing, but I figured that enough of you diversify that it would be a good place to ask. Plus, you're a smart bunch

I've dabbled with adsense before but as part of my efforts to broaden my revenue streams I'm looking at it more seriously. I've just started a sports rules site and wondered if any there were any adsense gurus here who could give their opinion on the banner placement and size/type for optimal CTC.

The site is: http://www.rulesofsport.com/

It's new and will have more sports being added over time until we get them all. For the home page there is only one 300x250 banner in the right sidebar - I was thinking of keeping the ads to a minimum on the HP and on category pages.

The rules pages for each sport have the same 300x250 banner, plus two 468x60 banners within the text (one half way through, one at the end) - you can see it in action here: http://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/badminton.html

All of these banners are set to image & text.

Any thoughts? Could my position or ad choices be improved?

[Sausages]

Hi,
I used to work with Adsense a lot. The best positions and ad type are banners imbedded about a paragraph below the first content. Have a look at this Google heatmap here: http://support.google.com/adsense/bi...answer=1354747

That gives a rough idea as to the best positions, and as you can see, the centre of the main content is the 'hottest'.
My web-site at fantafob.com ran for around a year with Adsense, but I have since changed to using an affiliate program. I believe the earning potential as an affiliate is far greater than any ads could provide.

My most popular pages are the Rainbow Riches content and Deal or No Deal pages. You can check out my ad placement on this page:
http://www.fantafob.com/double-deal-or-no-deal.html

Having a look at your website, I would say the top right square ad and the very bottom ad will not earn much attention. A side bar banner ad below the 'latest sports' menu, and removing the square ad so your menu is higher might be a better option, but that is only my opinion.

Also, you have a very good domain name. Have you thought about using an affiliate program instead of Google Ads? I only use Google Ads on YouTube now.

[baldidiot]

Thanks mate. Based on what you've said as well as some input over at PAL, I think I have my positioning way off. I'm going to have to have a think about how to redesign the site structure.

[universal4]

I personally do NOT like to visit sites that are built strictly around adsense ads.....

Sites that appear to have good content but have a clear focus that adsense ads are more important than presenting the content to the visitor do not change my opinion by very much and I often leave anyway....

Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear but my opinion anyway.

Rick
Universal4

[baldidiot]

I personally do NOT like to visit sites that are built strictly around adsense ads.....

Sites that appear to have good content but have a clear focus that adsense ads are more important than presenting the content to the visitor do not change my opinion by very much and I often leave anyway....

Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear but my opinion anyway.

Rick
Universal4

I'm exactly the same - which is why I was trying to make it as subtle/unabnoxious as possible. Of course this, by definition, will lead to a lower CTR...

[universal4]

Maybe slightly.....

But...by having the content placed better and providing a better visitor experience, more return visits, which will lead to longer term traffic for bith you and the advertisers....

Rick
Universal4

[baldidiot]

That's a good point, Rick. I'd take 1000 page views with a CTR of 0.5% over 100 with a CTR of 5% any day - much more chance of the content being shared, linked to, bookmarked etc..

And the site is meant to be a long term decent project rather than a fly by night EM traffic *****... Hmm.

So from a user perspective, what do you think of the current ad placement?

[universal4]

Nice actually and if I went to the pages to read and saw ads instead, I would "likely" not stay....but having the content more prominent I would likely stay and read....

I feel your home page needs more text, but the other pages are well done in my opinion.

Rick
Universal4

[Sausages]

I'm not saying build your site around Adsense, but place the ads where readers are most likely to view them. As you are only allowed 3 ads per page, it is important to maximise their positioning.
You can easily do this without annoying the reader, and as the large majority of people in the world are lazy readers, then why not break up a paragraph with an ad?
Google Ads are also targeted to the reader, not your content, so it is good that the reader is able to notice them. If your ads are displaying content that is worth £8 per clip to a reader, you really want that reader to be able to notice them.
Your block ad on the right is good, but I personally think a wide rectangle ad below the menu (instead of the block) would be better and be non-intrusive.
The footer ads rarely get any clicks, so if you do have the maximum of three, you would be better off moving it up a little, or just deleting it.

When I signed up to an affiliate program a couple of weeks ago, I removed my Google Ads and got a little carried away with the affiliate ad placement. I think I have gone too heavy with my ads, but originally with Google I had two banner ads on pages with large text content, and large square ads on pages with video or image and text content.
As long as they are non-intrusive, they can serve as breaks between text to give the reader a break.

Also, an important point for your site: It is very important that you have a privacy policy page and a contact link on your front (index) page. It is part of Googles terms and they will review your site at some point.

[baldidiot]

Thanks for the reminder - I slapped the site up in a day and completely forgot to add the privacy policy.

I think it's going to take a while and a lot of experimenting to come up with the optimum balance between user experience and revenue. Thanks for the inputs - all very helpful!