Advertising is a major source of revenue for websites. Unlike in the past, visitors today have come to accept advertisements as part of the websites and advertisers themselves are much surer about the effectiveness of their ads. However, advertisements are a concern for the website because they need to accommodate the ads within the website without ruining the design. Here comes the capability of a good designer.

Page Layout and Spacing of Elements

Advertisements can occupy huge spaces on a web page and thus affect the layout. Be it a single large banner ad or be it a cluster of smaller ones, the layout of the website would definitely be affected. There are 2 ways of including ads on website – either you can sprinkle them all through the website or you can designate a particular place for the ads. The choice here depends on the industry the website belongs as well as other factors. Here are some common trends...

News websites generally have advertisements scattered all over the layout of the website. They have small groups of ads here and there on the web pages along with the content.
Blogs contain banner ads in a specific area of the web pages, usually on the sidebar. This allows the ads to be restricted to one particular portion of the web pages so that the rest of the page can be free of all ads.

Advertisements are often featured in the sidebars of blogs and websites. Therefore, one of the major considerations is the width needed to hold ads in the sidebars. And this should be considered through the design process itself because any changes later would just be a cause of more expenses. The header space is yet another popular space for ads because of its high visibility. But then again, the space needs to be considered and enough space needs to be allocated for the ads in the design stage itself in order to prevent further expenses.

Colors of the Advertisements

One thing over which designers have no control of is the color of the advertisements that will get featured on the website. Though they can define the placement of the ads, the color of the ads is a call of the advertiser. However, what designers can do is that they can consider the color implications beforehand and define an appropriate color scheme for the website. Banner ads are generally bright and flashy and seeks to attract attention. And if your website is designed with the similar shades of bright flashy colors then it would just give the appearance of sheer amateurishness.

Websites that have overtly flashy banner ads should go rather subtle on colors in order to avoid potential color overload.

Focusing Visitor Attention

Yet another challenge of having advertisements on websites is making visitors focus on important contents. The flow of information on a website can be highly impacted or rather disrupted by advertisements and once visitors lose focus, it is rather difficult to get them back again.

Designers should consider the aspects of advertisements and create a design that provides necessary screen space and a layout that accommodates ads and blends them seamlessly with the other page elements.