Most people who advertise on their site think that the only way to increase their income is to drive more traffic.
However, they are very wrong.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, income can be increased thanks to changes on the site.
Introducing the 7 best methods to boost your website's advertising revenue without the need for increased traffic.
Different ad networks have different restrictions on the number of banners that can be shown at the same time. Usually, these networks aim to maximize profits, which can also have a positive impact on your income. It's worth making sure you're taking advantage of all the opportunities available.
For example, banners can be placed in the header of the site, in the right or left column, inside the text, between paragraphs or at the beginning/end of the article. There are also rich media formats that can appear after a while above all content or open on the side or at the bottom of the page.
Some formats can be used simultaneously, such as header, in-article and footer banners. Add new formats gradually, one by one, and watch the number of clicks change. If you see that clicks have decreased or users are unhappy with the number of advertising banners, remove the extra ones and try other combinations.
This may sound like a contradiction to my previous advice, but it really is. While I've encouraged you to take advantage of every opportunity to advertise, now I'm asking you to do so thoughtfully.
If your website is overwhelmed with ads, pop-ups, and cluttered content, visitors are unlikely to return, and you risk a drop in search engine traffic.
Unobtrusive advertising is perceived neutrally by most readers, so imagine yourself as a visitor to your site and analyze the pages. Where do you need to place your ad to be clicked on?
To make the job easier, you can use tools like "heat maps" and video recorders. They record the behavior of users on the page, show how they move the mouse, where they click, and so on. Among the most famous is Hotjar.
This is definitely one of the easiest ways to optimize your ads. If there is a banner or product offer that makes you the most money, put it where the most people will see it.
The top part of your web page, where the ad is placed, should be visible immediately, without scrolling. For example, it can be the header and menu of the site.
Since most users won't scroll to the bottom of the page, it's possible that your banners placed there might not receive much visibility or clicks.
But it is also important to remember that sometimes advertisements are well clicked due to their special placement. (We wrote about this in the previous article) If you change your location, advertising revenue may drop. Therefore, always after you move the banner to another place, look at the results of this action.
This experiment is usually worth the time spent on it and can lead to an increase in income of up to 35%.
This doesn't correlate directly with income, but it's perhaps the most important point in this article.
Invest money and time and make a resource that looks professional.
Take a look at these two sites: which one inspires more trust for you? And on which one are you more likely to click on ads without worrying about getting a virus on your computer?
A template web page on free hosting is not comparable in effectiveness to a professionally made site or blog on the platform.
Follow a good rule: pretend you're cooler than you really are.
Even if you have a small cat care website, present yourself as if you have the most popular catblog in the world – then your users will feel the same.
Now there are many good platforms for creating sites, use them and do A/B testing, change the design and position of ads – it will definitely give results.
Also, to create an advertising banner yourself, use the banner designer with ready-made templates – this will allow you to avoid involving designers and programmers, and as a result, you will get a great clickable banner, done literally in minutes.
We have already written about 15 design techniques how to make a banner, for which you will not be ashamed. If you really want to get the most out of it, read and put everything into practice.
This article covered information about the banner's color.
This is a super common mistake people make when creating banners: they try to make them match their site's colors perfectly. Sure, it might look all nice and coordinated, but guess what? No one's gonna bother clicking on those banners. They'll just blend right in and get totally overlooked.
Choose additional colors that would make your banner stand out among the website's color scheme. For example, if you have a predominantly orange color on your site, the blue color of the banner will harmonize with it, but also stand out and be different from the rest.
Try changing the colors, but again, measure the result. In many of the tests we conducted, the banners with the most horrible color schemes had the highest CTR.
And although you may be a little afraid to "distort" your site, there is no need to be afraid – your readers will not run away from you. Advertising has become a part of everyday life, and your readers know it.
We're all glued to our smartphones and tablets, yet when it comes to online marketing, many just seem to overlook the mobile users.
According to StatCounter as of January 2018, the share of global mobile traffic exceeded 51.99%, traffic from desktop computers fell to 43.79%, traffic from tablets – at the level of 4.22%. This means that mobile devices are becoming the main source of traffic, and neglecting this would be a big mistake.
Whichever ad network you use, make sure it supports mobile ad formats.
Set up separate desktop and mobile campaigns yourself (or with the help of a marketer) so you can A/B test each.
Because user behavior is difficult to predict, experiment with ad placement and constantly monitor results.
It's great to want more traffic, but it's also important to try to get more pageviews per user.
If on your site, reading the first article, I do not click on the advertisement, then I can do it on another page of your site, where an entirely different advertisement may appear that interests me more.
Do not forget to constantly link to the content of your website – this will keep users on the site and, accordingly, can increase your income.
Take any entertainment news portal, for example. There are bound to be articles with bright headlines like "10 movies of 2017 that every entrepreneur should watch." You go in there, and it begins – you're forced to watch one movie per page and press buttons to scroll left and right.
Why do you think these annoying slideshows and galleries are? Of course, to get more views, more ad impressions and more clicks.
And while I don't recommend you use the same mechanism to increase pageviews, you should know what you can do and what techniques exist to do it.
And how are you doing with this? What increased ad revenue in your case?
Author: Karl Kangur. Adaptation: Bannerboo.com
