If you use affiliate marketing to monetise your website, chances are you have quite a few advertisements on its pages. Sure they are necessary to make a commission, but do you really need so many?
How Many Ads Are Too Many?
How do you know if there are too many ads on your site? Take a look at this list and see if you are guilty of any these bad design elements:
• There are more adverts than other types of content.
• It takes longer to read through the ads than the text.
• There is almost no white space left on the page.
• Your site has been flagged as spam or blacklisted.
Okay, these are probably rather extreme indications of excessive advertising but you get the point. Too many ads not only do nothing to increase sales, they can actually cause quite a bit of harm.
Why Less Is More
For the affiliate marketer, it is often best to work with a limited number of advertisers and in some cases, a single partner.
For one thing, the more companies you partner with, the greater the chance that they will compete with one another. If you include an ad for two financial services companies, for instance, which one will a visitor select? It’s not only confusing to the visitor, it cuts down on the overall amount of click-throughs you get paid on.
Going with two non-competing companies is no better. What is the topic of your site or blog? Stick with a limited number of marketing partners to help you best represent what your site is about.
How To Annoy Visitors
Remember that for the most part, adverts are simply annoying to visitors expecting to gain something from your site, whether it is information or interesting content or forum interaction. That being said, there are ways you can use online advertising subtly and appropriately.
Do not place ads all over the page. Limit them to one or possibly two places, at the beginning or the end. Google AdSense states that the most effective placement is at the top of the page, but that also means you risk losing visitors who do not take the time to scroll down and find the content they are seeking.
Ad copy in the middle of an article or blog post can be particularly annoying or distracting. Who wants to keep scrolling past adverts to continue reading some really good content? And if you’re trying to write content that sells, do you want someone to be distracted before they get to the end of the message?
If you really want to offend your visitors, place one of those floating advertisements that move along with the cursor superimposed over your web pages.
Sometimes the most effective place for ads is to relegate them to exit pop-ups that appear only when a visitor clicks on a particular link or starts to exit the site. This way it does not interfere with surfing through the pages. Another strategy is to have your ads blend in with your site so that they appear natural rather than obtrusively. Different marketers have different strategies but choosing a strategy is a good idea, even if you test the waters on a few different ones over a several month period.
Online advertising on your website is a great way to make money online, and the way many marketers become wealthy. But if you have too many ads, it can have a very detrimental effect on traffic and repeat visitors. Keep the advertising copy understated and tightly focused in order to achieve the best results.
About Sean Rasmussen
My blog is the total opposite at the moment – I have no ads at all! Still trying to work out whether I want to monetize in that manner… Just one thing on a list of a gazillion I still have to think about!
Hi Lina
There sure is plenty to do and with all this information there is more.
Great information though
Hi Sean
Thanks for putting things into perspective. I worried for some time about this issue.
I have decided to go for two complimentary products that aren’t in competition with one another. In fact one of the product owners recommends the other product.
Would this be a good strategy to follow?
Thanks for that.
I had never thought of exit pop-ups. What a great idea.
I do already follow your advice in that I try to make what are actually my ads fit in very naturally to the content and in no way either distract or annoy. I don’t know how successful I am, but I certainly am conscious of how offensive the hard sell can be.
Personally I am totally put off by the hard sell in any area. In a department store if the clerk begins a hard sell, I just walk away, even if I really wanted the item, I will go elsewhere to buy it.
So, I feel that it is no secret that what I am trying to do is sell, but I hope to do it in an attractive and reasonably subtle way rather than ramming things down throats.
Thanks for the article.
Hi Sean,
I don’t have too many ads yet and I’ll try not to make this mistake. I have one affiliate product I intend to start marketing and I’m considering a second complementary product.
I’m thinking of using the primary one as the one I’ll use most of the time. But, there are certain posts that I think I would do better to use the second one on. In that case I wouldn’t use the primary one at all. Do you have any advice, Sean?
Hi Sean,
Sometimes I make the mistake with too many ads on my site. Right now I have one affiliate product on my blog and a couple Adsense Ads.
My problem is that the ads are not very closely related to the blog content. Even Google is having problems relating ads to content…I have noticed.
I know I have to improve a lot with SEO. In the meantime I will be aware to follow the advice in this article and not overload my site with too many ads. Thank you.
Adsense ads are usually very well targeted Jill. If you are finding the ads on your site are un-targeted, it may be possible that there are not a lot of products that are relative to your particular post content.
Hi Sean
I have no adds on my blog yet as I am still building it, but I am really grateful to get this information as it will save me time by not making errors in this area.