Fresh Adsense/Placement Optimization Tip

[mariush]

A RECENT survey of how eyes read a web page shows that most users read in an F shaped pattern.
The test, which has been carried out by boffins working for the Nielsen Norman Group, monitored what the eye balls of 232 users were doing when they looked at web pages.

Much to their surprise they found that users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area.

Next, they move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement.

Lastly they scan the content's left side in a vertical movement. The group has published pictures of a typical reading here here, but if the report is correct then it could have a few implications for web designers and news sites.

Firstly no one is going to read text word-by-word and most are only going to read the first two paragraphs.

In other words, you are all tabloid readers and if you have got this far in a story you are in an incredible minority. So really I write what I like about your mother down here and you will never know. [You're fired Nick. Ed.] µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31057

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

[Jarodboy]

Nice article mate

[rewlie]

nice article .. i got a clue now ..

[w3bmistress]

nice.. very interesting..

[Mong]

thanks for sharing and i think heat map is something already available based on various studies.

[amitpagarwal]

Eyetracking Study Summary: Don't place Google Ads on the right sidebar as users completely ignore that area.

Makes me wonder why Google Homepage has ads in that location.

[MattL]

I recently removed the ads from the right side column (and left the ads in the "hottest" areas) on many of my sites and my CTR dropped by 1-2%! My earnings also dropped some but I haven't been able to correlate the two yet.

[metagold]

waww.. nice...

[lostartist]

Interesting information. Nice share.

[cormac]

Originally Posted by amitpagarwal

Eyetracking Study Summary: Don't place Google Ads on the right sidebar as users completely ignore that area.

Makes me wonder why Google Homepage has ads in that location.

They would be contradicting themselves if they were designing their pages to attract clicks and not for the information they provide.

[Gurpartap]

great, this helps, thanks mariush!!

[wwwSENSERELYcom]

Originally Posted by MattL

I recently removed the ads from the right side column (and left the ads in the "hottest" areas) on many of my sites and my CTR dropped by 1-2%! My earnings also dropped some but I haven't been able to correlate the two yet.

It might be that visitors might often click on the right sidebar ads when they want to scroll down the page by using the vertical scrollbar on the right. If they miss their click and the adsense block is aligned on right, they might click it. Then realizing they didn' click the scrollbar, they release the mouse bouton, on top of the ad, and there you go, nothing can stop the click from being register, except a quick STOP of the browser.

[wannaknow]

Originally Posted by wwwSENSERELYcom

It might be that visitors might often click on the right sidebar ads when they want to scroll down the page by using the vertical scrollbar on the right.

True, just wanted to say that So from one side surfers tend to read and put most attention on left side (according to survey), from other they look and can occasionaly click when they scroll down from the right side.
Conclusion: place it in both places

[MattL]

Originally Posted by wwwSENSERELYcom

It might be that visitors might often click on the right sidebar ads when they want to scroll down the page by using the vertical scrollbar on the right. If they miss their click and the adsense block is aligned on right, they might click it. Then realizing they didn' click the scrollbar, they release the mouse bouton, on top of the ad, and there you go, nothing can stop the click from being register, except a quick STOP of the browser.

Yes I have seen this but it isn't the case on the sites I'm talking about. The sites are fixed width at 740 px and centered, so the right side of the site isn't up against the right side of the browser window, even at 800x600.

I replaced the ads on most of the places and sure enough the CTR went back up!

[GADOOD]

I remember seeing something like this a while back.

I like this image the best..



It clearly shows how important it is to rank within the top 3 results and just how much more traffic you would recieve.

Pete

[projectw3]

If the image is accurate, wouldn't the reader be seeing a contextual ad when they finished the first sentence of the page? (i.e. the first stroke of the F) And if they happen to see something they like, they click it.

Just a theory though.

[Franck S]

Excellent images. Thanks.

[peeter]

Thanks for sharing: )

[IamDevon]

Great information, thanks!