Opinions Please: Adverts too obtrusive? 2

[Stretchwickster]

My client wanted to maximise his income by displaying adverts on his pages (using Google Adsense). To begin with, I settled for a single horizontal banner at the bottom of the page. The advantage being that it didn't "spoil" the design of the site. The disadvantage being that not as many people see the adverts on pages containing more content. Hence, the revenue from this advertising is pretty sparse.

I'm toying with the idea of adding another horizontal banner to the top of the page (just under the heading), please let me know whether you think the additional top banner makes the advertising too obtrusive on the user experience. I've temporarily added this additional banner at the following url:

http://www.slydance.com/.

If you do consider this level of advertising too obtrusive due to its layout, where else would you put advertising on the page?

Please note:
This is a genuine design request and I am not publishing this URL for a second time in just over a month simply to get extra traffic or revenue from clicked adverts. Therefore, if you could refrain from actually clicking the adverts (unless you truly are interested in the particular dance-related offering!) I would be most grateful.

As always, your advice/views/opinions would be much appreciated!

Clive

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"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
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To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096

 

[ChrisHunt]

I don't find the ads at the top of that page too intrusive. For me, though, I'd only have ads at the top or the bottom, not both. Otherwise your ads-to-content ratio can look a little high. This might be less of a problem on pages with more content than the home page.



-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[feherke]

Hi

I think they are fine. While all advertisements are related to the page topic, I find them more informative then intrusive. ( Please note, my opinion may be biased. I also installed the AdBar extension for FireFox... )

About having two group of advertisements, I think it is still Ok. While I pumped the Refresh button, the top advertisement never changed, but the bottom one changed between two different advertisement set. Seems that the different sized frames loads different advertisements, so both are useful.

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[feherke]

Hi

Look at this page :

http://junlu.com/msg/79668.html

Also two Google advertisements, one at the top, the other at the bottom. But the top one is 336*280 pixel. That is obtrusive. Your is Ok.

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[Stretchwickster]

Thanks for the input guys. I've taken Chris' advice and have omitted the bottom horizontal banner from pages where you can see both banners without scrolling (i.e. pages with a high ads-to-content ratio).

feherke, when I added the additional banner at the top, I made sure that it fitted within the natural page width, that the height was minimal (certainly not 280px!) and that it was clear where the banner started and finished (i.e. a background colour that didn't blend into the background colour of the page).

As a result of your input, I've decided to keep both banners, but display them wisely based on the level of content.

Once again, many thanks to you both.

Clive

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096