Having trouble getting your readers to click on your pay per click links?

As discussed in a previous post, there are a few ways to get your readers to click PPC links by mentioning them on your blog. In that post we briefly discussed how you can use design to help readers notice your ads and therefore click them.  For example, you can post your link at the top of the page so its visible right away, and you can make it stand out by surrounding it with blank space.

Here are 2 design tips you can use that follows along those lines of making your ad “Stand Out”.

Avoid distracting widgets

You might have a number of links, pictures and widgets in your side bar.  All of these things can distract your reader from clicking on the ad.  Simplicity will help you here.  If there are less things to divide your reader’s attention, chances are they will be more likely to click your PPC ad.

A lot of the time, when readers see a mess of “things” on a side bar, their eyes my just skip over it entirely and they won’t even bother looking there.

Direct your readers’ eyes to the ad

It is a way to help things stand out on a page.  Often, blogs will have distinct elements or sections of a page.  For example, you have the top banner, then you have the content, then you have the side bar.  The sidebar itself is often divided into neat little boxes.

This “boxy” type layout may help you get your PPC ads noticed.  To get it noticed, you can have it stick out a little bit, outside the “boxes” on your page.  You can also use a different font color, a different background color, a different font face, a different font size, a different font style, etc.

By making your ad different, you can draw your visitors’ eyes to that section of your blog.

(Of course you can also use this to attract your visitors’ eyes to other things – not just your PPC ads.  You might want to use this for your content as well.  If you have one article that you think is really good, post the title in a different font color, use a different background – etc, all the same things mentioned before.  Then if a reader comes to your page, they will be drawn to that article.

Drawing a reader to a particular article may give them something to focus on, whereas otherwise they might feel overwhelmed or unsure about where to begin.)

The key to making this strategy work is to make sure you don’t go crazy and over do it.  If you want to make an article stand out, you can only make one (maybe two… a small number) stand out.  Overall, the layout design should be simple and organized – it should be neat, with the exception of that one item, your PPC ad or your article (you could probably do both).

If all your articles have different colors and font styles etc, then it won’t stand out.  To have something standout, the rest of the page should be mostly uniform.