BT broadband office

Four ways to make people notice online ads

Posted 30 August 2007 at 8:21AM by Simon Dickson in Website development

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen is troubled. 'I've been reluctant to discuss one of the findings from our eyetracking research because the conclusion is that unethical design pays off. After much soul-searching,' he explains in his latest column at useit.com, 'I've now decided to publish our new findings, despite their ethical implications.'

Nielsen's latest research exercise confirms 'for the umpteenth time' that web users have developed what he calls 'banner blindness'. We almost never look at anything that looks like an advert - even if it isn't an advert. So what does attract our attention towards adverts? Plain text, faces, 'cleavage and other private body parts'... and sneaky adverts designed to look like part of the main page.

'Reputable newspapers don't allow advertisers to mimic their branded typefaces or other layout elements,' he writes - although that ignores the rather grey area of the 'advertorial'. 'To maximize (readers' attention to your advert), that's exactly what you should do in a Web ad.'

But such methods have to come with caveats - if users think they're going to see some real content when they click a link, only to end up on an advertiser's landing page, they could easily be switched off both the originating site and the advertiser. 'I caution against going too far, because it can backfire,' Nielsen writes: 'ethical business practices will attract more loyal customers in the long run.'

Tags: advertising, advertorial, adwords, clickthrough, jakob nielsen, pay-per-click

New feature: Rate this post!

Average rating: 4.2/5

Comments

Post a comment

As 14 days have passed, comments are now closed for this entry.