3 Terrific Spots to place Ad Units on your Website

This is the fourth article in the CTR Wednesdays series. You can find all the articles in this series here: CTR Wednesdays

By now you know what ad units to use. Today we will see where to place these ad units for getting the maximum CTR.

Like for every other thing on the internet, here too, there is no solution that fits all - ad placement for blogs, websites and forums can be significantly different. While we discuss ad placements for a standard website for today, we will soon have posts dedicated to placements on blogs and that for forums.

Google Golden Triangle
It has been a long time since the Google golden triangle got widely known on the internet. The google golden triangle says that the top left corner of the google results page is the part most looked at. This holds good for any website and placing ads in this area can get them better noticed. Ad unit placement for the maximum CTR is most often based on the good old Google golden triangle, though not always. This space in my opinion can accommodate and monetize most of the ad formats including Leaderboard (728 x 90), Banner (468 x 60) or the Large Rectangle (336 x 280).

The Google Golden Triangle


Sample Placement derived from the Google Golden Triangle

Food for the Curious
This method specially holds good for long pages. On these pages, users would read till the last line and then look for more information. At this point, placing ads (that are relevant) at the bottom of the long text can serve as food on which the curious readers will feed. They get the needed info and you get paid! The 336x280 large rectangle would just be fine here.

Placing ads at the end of long pages

Wide Sidebars
Sidebars commonly accommodate links and other short text and have a large number of users looking at them. They, with their high potential to double up as ad space are the hot favorites of advertisers. Make the most of them by using a (or two) Wide Skyscraper (160x600) on it. A sidebar can overlap the google golden triangle if it’s on the left and can prove to be more advantageous. That said don’t bother to change your site’s right sidebar to the left for placing ads. Consider this for your nest site at least.

Sample placement for the sidebars

NB: This post is exclusively for ad units on a standard website. Stay tuned for ads units on blogs and forums. Also on the way are articles on link units and search box placements.
So stay tuned!