Put Up Banners, Stupid

It seems like every time one of my natural search sites starts doing really well, I get giddy and try to change things up. This usually results in decreased clutter, a more streamlined page, and me screwing things up in general. I’ll usually end up putting up just like one or two banners for the product that I am getting the most traffic for. Sometimes this works, but most of the time I lose.

Then I get real down on myself for a day or two while conversions suffer.

Then I remember something brilliant. It’s so simple it makes me angry. I need to put up more banners! I don’t care how clean I think the page looks. If it’s not making money, then it’s not doing its job. So, I take myself back to elementary school. I throw up tons of banners for, say, the top 10 products that I’m getting the most traffic for. Lo and behold: more conversions. More money.

Simple Tip: If you’re getting qualified traffic to your site, be it organic, or otherwise and your conversions aren’t really up to par, put up banners.

  • http://farinspace.com/ Dimas

    Hi Jeremy,

    How many banners/ads do you have on the page at any given time? and do you rotate the different offers? (for instance you have 2 ad spots and you rotate 10 different offers vs 10 different banners on the page)

  • http://eliteeternity.com Jeremy Blake

    Hey Dimas, I haven’t experimented too much with ad rotation, although I know I should. I just haven’t been able to figure it out yet. For right now, on a lot of my sites, I put up quite a few banners(5 to 8). Most of them small. Then I’ll put one or two large banners somewhere else on the page. The larger banners would be for the products that I have the highest hopes for.

    Of course you’ll have to use your best judgement on how many banners / where to put them on your site, but I find that putting quite a few up gives me good info on what products are converting.

  • http://farinspace.com/ Dimas

    Jeremy, I think a great article for your to write, at least one I would be interested in would be a case study of your sites (obviously you do not have to reveal what sites they are), it would be interesting to read about your traffic figures (tips you may have), and how you go about monetizing the sites.

    • http://eliteeternity.com Jeremy Blake

      Cool dude, I’ll work on something like this.

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