Text Ads — Google’s best

Text Ads — Google’s best

Text ads are probably the types of ad that you are most acquainted with. You get a box carrying one or a number of ads with a linked headline, a brief description and a web address. You also get down the “Ads by Google” notice that comes along on all AdSense ads. (Google changed this notice recently and it now blends in much better than it used to.)

There are eight a different types of text ad. The most popular is in all likelihood the leaderboard. At 728 x 90, it reaches pretty much across the screen and although it can be placed anywhere, it is for the most part applied at the top of the page, above the main text.

That’s a great location. It is the first thing the reader sees and it offers a good choice of ads to decide from. When you are just beginning and still trying out with the types of ads that work better with your users, it is a pretty good default in the beginning.

Naturally, you are able to put it in other places too. Placing a leaderboard ad between forum entries for example can be a pretty good strategy sometimes and definitely worth trying. On the altogether though, I believe you will probably find that one of the smaller ads, such as a banner or half-banner might blend in more there and bring better results.

And I think you are able to often forget about placing a leaderboard at the bottom of the page, despite what Google’s samples show you. It would certainly fit at that place but you’ve to be sure that people are going to reach the bottom of the page, especially a long page. You might discover that only a small minority of readers would get that far, so you are already reducing the percentage of readers who’d click through.

Overall, I’d say that leaderboards are most effective blended into the top of the page beneath the navigation bar and sometimes placed between forum entries.