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As you travel around the web, you'll notice that most sites now
have ads in some form or another. Some of them are subtle, but
some of them just aren't - in fact, after a while, the ads at
some sites can annoy you enough that you'll either block them
out entirely or leave the website. This isn't good for you, and
it isn't good for the site's owner - which is why you want to
avoid the problem or your website.
Basically, you probably want to run ads, but you don't want to
drive your visitors crazy doing it. That's why you should avoid
all the following kinds of ads.
Pop-ups and Pop-unders
The classic annoying ads are pop-ups: those ads that open a new
browser window to display, and force you to close them before
you can continue. Pop-unders are a variation, that pop up behind
the website so the user sees them when they close their browser
- not only annoying, but also quite confusing for them.
People are annoyed enough by pop-ups to actually buy dedicated
pop-up blocking software, and browsers eventually started
including it as a built-in feature. This means that pop-up ads
now bother only the most unsophisticated of users who don't
upgrade their software, generally a minority of your site's
audience - pop-ups just aren't as profitable as they used to be,
so there's no point in annoying people with them any more.
Floating Ads and Takeovers
The rise of pop-up blocking software has meant that pop-ups have
effectively been replaced by floating ads and website
'takeovers' - that is, ads created using Flash that appear over
the top of the page you're viewing, covering up its content.
These ads are even more annoying than pop-ups, because they
usually don't come up with a close button for a few seconds
after they appear, and missing it slightly can cause the
advertiser's site to appear. Users will often stop going to
sites that make use of takeovers.
Interstitials
Interstitials are a popular form of high-revenue advertising.
The basic principle is that an ad is displayed on a full-page
before the content, and then the user has to click through from
there to get to the page they want. This, understandably, annoys
users who just want some information - it mainly only works on
sites where you have something to offer that others don't, like
an exclusive story or a video. Used well, they can be a big
money-spinner, but used badly they'll have people reaching for
the back button.
If you do use interstitials, make sure you don't track them
using cookies, as this will cause users with cookies disabled to
see the ad far more times than they should. You should also use
Javascript to make sure that the ad disappears automatically and
quickly, without the user having to click through - this makes
them far less annoying.
Animated Ads
Part of the reason that animated GIFs have become popular on the
web is their overuse in advertising. At its worst, this results
in ads that cycle rapidly through hundreds of colours, garish
flashing text, and even ads that appear to vibrate or otherwise
move around to draw attention to themselves. As you can imagine,
visitors find this distracting and infuriating when they're
trying to concentrate on your site - resulting in them losing
interest and clicking their back button.
Modern animated ads that use Flash can even have sound, although
this is quite rare, as even the advertisers don't want to annoy
people that much. Anyway, avoid.
Products to Avoid
Finally, it's worth noting a few specific products that you
should avoid running ads for, simply because the actual content
of the ads themselves. Try to stay away from ads that look like
fake system error messages, as non-technical users find these
frightening and technical users find them deceitful. It's also
worth staying away from those fake competition ads where
everyone wins, and ads that are aiming to get your visitors to
install 'spyware' on their computer and send private data to
them - conning your visitors into this kind of thing is
unethical, and makes them less likely to come back to your site
ever again.
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