Day 5 of Living Media's 11 Tips to Make Your Website a Success
Your website is your shop window and used effectively it can be a real asset to your company, business or organisation. But if used badly it can be an embarrassing nuisance hanging around your neck and weighing your company down.
At Living Media Liverpool, we want to help make your website something that you can be proud of. Today we look at how you can use ads effectively.
Don’t have too many Ads!
Most websites carry ads. That’s fine! What isn’t fine however is when those ads distract customers from what you’re trying to sell. Make sure that any adverts you have on your site are:
A) relevant to your company. So if you’re selling flowers, why not have a link to a site that organises weddings. Don’t have an ad for Joe’s Rib Shack or something! Google has a handy tool for this kind of thing. Make sure if you have ads on your site, that they appeal to your target audience. Here's a good example from Arsenal FC's official homepage. Most football fans checking Arsenal's website, are men who enjoy a pint during or after the game. So Arsenal have an advert for Carlsberg lager, which when clicked on takes you straight through to the Carlsberg site. It's a clever way of linking your content to your demographic.
B) Unobtrusive. An ad should fill space and look pretty. If it’s eating into your text, or blaring garishly over a video then it needs to go. Lets have a look at Liverpool's very own Radio City website. As you can see, Radio City have just 2 ads on their site; one for Microsoft Internet Explorer and another for Panorama kitchens. Although both can be seen at first glance, neither is obstructing the actual content of the site.
And finally, C) is neat. Having ads all over the place makes your webpage look confused and untidy. A few here and there is much better than all over the place. Take this example from Empire Magazine. At the moment, Empire magazine are promoting the new Compass Jeep. Instead of having a number of untidy Jeep ads littering the site, they have managed to tie the ad in with the overall site theme, making it look neat and professional whilst at the same time promoting the product.
There are a number of sites that allow you to place ads on your webpage. Probably one of the best is Simply.com. This is a site which allows you to upload your website details, and then have ads recommended to you. Be warned however, that these kind of sites will cost you money, so do your research before you do anything.
Remember, it's ok to have ads. It shows that you are aware of what's happening in your industry, but don't let them clog up your website or you'll have customers running rather than buying from you.
Tags: website tips, website design, website advice, website background, webpage adverts, banner adverts, website adverts