Are Ads Killing Your Website?

Website managers often don’t consider the impact that placing ads on a website has on their organic search visibility. We have put our heart and soul in designing, developing, using SEO tools, and making a sparklingly good website that has grown since it was launched and had good traffic. So after congratulating ourselves on a job well done, what do we do?

Most of the website manager’s start putting more ads on the website. They think by putting more ads, they will be making more money. That might be true in the short term – but they are going to lose in the long run. There are many behind this happening.

Death by Numbers

If a website has too many resource calls to handle, it will slow down the loading of the home page of the site. If the search browser has to make several trips back and forth between the browser and server, the site’s display time will increase. It can easily escalate page speed issues. Try turning the ads off on your website, and you will notice the difference in the speed for the page to appear. If there is a marked difference, then you know you have to fix it.

The slow loading can be because of excessive scripting, lots of resource calls, and when a page takes ages to open, the bounce rate increases. Wantonly adding more ads is not a good digital marketing strategy. Viewers are ready to view useful ads, not because they are overflowing.

Consumers Don’t Dislike Ads; They Hate Bad Ads

People feel irritated, interrupted, plagued by bad digital advertisements, but they don’t mind the good and useful ones. Let’s look at the most hated forms of advertisement.

Pop-Ups Are the Worst

A study showed that the ads hated the most by consumers were pop-up ads with a 73 percent disapproval rate. You browse to a website, and as the home page opens a pop-up ad is displayed. Getting the pop-up to close can be quite irritating, especially if you have to hunt around to find the close button. You have to ignore it to read the content, which was the reason for you coming to this site, or you are halfway through the page, and pop-up blocks you from continuing. It’s absolutely frustrating!

Auto-Play Videos

Don’t be surprised, 82 percent of viewers have left a website because of annoying auto-play ads. They don’t want to be forced into watching unavoidable auto-play advertisements that are trying to lure them into buying something they don’t have any use for.

Their rating of products that resort to auto-play ads advertising also falls dramatically. 51% of people have said that they dislike items that advertise through non-skippable videos.

Misleading Ads

Misleading ads is one of the worst types of advertising. Trying to lure customers into thinking that something is relevant to what they are reading or watching but ultimately isn’t. This will not turn clicks into sales but will have precisely the opposite effect. No matter how good your site’s content is, the viewer will not return!

Pro Tip: You can check the originality of your content if it is plagiarized or unique with the help of our free plagiarism checker tool.

Power Is with The Viewer

Ad blockers have seen a surge in usage over the last five years. That just shows how adverse viewers have become to digital ads. This, of course, amounts loss to website masters and owners. Even mobile ads are at risk. The usage of mobile ad blockers is also on the rise.

Websites that rely on ad revenue have been fighting back. They block viewers who are using ad blockers from viewing the content. But it is not a solution as viewers will shift their focus to other sites. After all, your website is just one in the niche where you are providing information or selling something.

Way Forward

The solution is to display those ads that are in line with the customers’ interests and your website’s information. Viewers don’t mind seeing ads that are relevant and not annoying. This is the trick social media sites apply in displaying ads. Yes, they are better informed because they have a database of their viewers’ likes, dislikes, and where they are located.

Digital marketers must focus on producing ads that viewers actually click on. 34% of people say they have accidentally clicked on an advertisement because they couldn’t find the cross button (‘x’) to close the ad.

Successful digital ads must not frustrate or annoy the consumer’s browsing experience. The digital ads must be professional, easy to understand, and placed correctly. They should clearly tell what they’re offering, so viewers don’t feel tricked.

The Bottom Line

You, as a website manager/owner/SEO executive, know exactly where most of your traffic is coming from, so you should select ads based on their geographical location. If you can get more personal info about the likes/dislikes, age group, the gender of your visitors, you can place ads that will attract them.

There are billions of ads to select from; all you have to do is make smart choices of ads your viewers will like to see and which will turn them off. Don’t place ads just because an ad company is urging you to. Look at your viewers’ interest and place appropriate ads. As a result, you, the advertiser, and the viewers all will gain from this.

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