How ads can drive traffic away

I have been experimenting with different kind of ads by different affiliates. If you are using Google Adsense then you cannot have more than three ads in one webpage. Adsense, buysellads or other similar programs have a standard size that you can choose from. There are few other affiliate programs which are mainly used by people who are new to blogging like the Chitika, Infolinks which are very easy to get approvals when compared to Google adsense.

Also see: How to opt out of Ads in websites

The problem with these affiliates is you don't have good control over how the ads appear. In addition to standard size ads they even have List Unit ads, intext, intag, insearch, inframe ads etc. You don't have control on how these ads should appear. Usually Google adsense ads appear as text or display ads which appear in the sidebar or top and in between text as a box.

I have seen ads from Chitika text ads appearing in blogs which will display part of the heading (three to four words) in four different lines. This is shown if there is no display ad to show. This text ad may appear as a text which doesn't make sense or displays text which has no grammar with few words from blog title or the tags that are used.

Also see: Understanding your blog traffic better

If you have a blog post which has too many intext ads and that too from different affiliates then your website/ blog visitors may get irritated with too many pop-up ads. Worst thing is if there are no ads to show then there will be irrelevant ads appearing like the one shown here. The text that is highlighted is 'Link Building' but shows an ad of Facebook which is not related. This can annoy users/ visitors with irrelevant ads, and too many ads can drive traffic away from your website.

I have been experimenting with these ads for a while and thanks to some of my visitors who were honest in giving feedback. Because of which I could easily make out as to what users did not like and what made them leave my website. It is important to consider user feedback else you might drive traffic away. Those who are new to blogging try different methods to make money online and will place ads from different affiliates and will not make money from any of them.

Also see: How to have the right keyword density per post

If you look into some of the popular blogs, you will find few display ads and not other junk ads. They see that content is highlighted more than the ad and this is how they gain more visitors and by doing so will not drive traffic away. Also, I have seen few other websites where there are too many ads and still they are popular. They know that they get traffic and this is the reason why they flood with so many ads. Simple example is - check out 'Times Of India' website - one if the top newpapers in India which has been publishing articles for more than 100 years and they always have breaking news on all topics. So, here flooding their website with too many ads will definitely irritate users. Even then, visitors come back and revisit their website because they have content.

So, here is what I recommend. If you are earning or planning to make money out of Chitika, Infolinks or other similar affiliate programs then see that you minimize the number of ads that are appearing else you might distract users and will drive traffic away from your website. Try to find out which ad unit is performing the best and earning the most and remove all other junk ads which are not worth placing in your website. Experiment it yourself on your blog. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Also see: How to get more returning visitors and increase web traffic

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