Now that we went over what should be on the pages presenting photographs, we must move on to discussing where should everything go, i.e. the layout of the page.
Most of this section will assume that publishers have reasonable flexibility in designing the layout of each page, as that it is very important for experimenting with various ad and link placements. For Hulubei.Net I wrote my own tools, which can be found here. Having said that, I will simply enumerate a few important, well known things that I have learned while researching ways to improve the layout of the web pages presenting photographs:
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When visually scanning web pages, people's eyes tend to follow a trajectory that looks like a V. That is, they first look at the top left corner, then at the center of the page, then at top right corner. This is where publishers should place things they want visitors to see, like ads, the photograph, and the navigation links.
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Google published a heat map that describes the best performing ad locations. Interesting enough, ads placed at the bottom of the page, right after the end of the content, are thought to perform very well. In Google's own words: It's almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves, "What can I do next?".
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Wide skyscraper ad units perform better than narrower ones. For instance, the new 160x600 skyscraper performs better than the 120x600 skyscraper that I used for a while. Wider skyscrapers are simply easier to read.
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Google AdSense offers the option of rotating the colors of the ads, with the idea of preventing ad blindness. It would be interesting to experiment with that.
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It is better to keep navigation links from changing position from page to page. Placing them under the photograph, or to its right, will cause their position to be influenced by the size of the photograph (unless all photographs have the same size, which is unlikely). Visitors should not have to chase the link to the next page in the album.
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According to these statistics there are still plenty of people out there with low resolution screens, such as 800x600. Publishers need to keep that in mind when designing the layout of their pages, in particular when considering the position of the ad units. Checking how a page is rendered at various popular resolutions, such as 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024 is very important. A well designed page, however, is about content, not about ads. When people click on a photograph's thumbnail in Google's Image Search results and are directed to a certain page, they expect instant gratification! A decent size version of that photograph better be there, in their face, irrespective of the screen resolution, because if visitors have to scroll past 3 big ad units stacked on top of each other in order to see the actual photograph, they will most likely hit the Back button before they get to it!
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It has been reported recently that many publishers started placing images above or under the ad units, with the goal of visually attracting the visitor's attention to that part of the page. In order to comply with Google's AdSense Program Policies a clear separation between the image and the ad unit needs to be kept; in other words, Google wants to make it clear that the image is not part of the ads. I had briefly experimented with such a layout, placing above the skyscraper ad unit a preview of the next photograph in the album, but failed to notice any significant improvement. From a layout perspective, it is worth noting however that such images will push down the ad unit and may cause its bottom part to be rendered outside the visible part of the page, decreasing the likelihood of visitors clicking on it. This is particularly true for skyscraper ad units and visitors with low resolution screens.
Alternatively, images could be placed on top of the large letterboard ad unit at the bottom of the page. I have experimented with such a layout, placing two thumbnails that link to the previous and next photograph in the index on top of that wide ad unit, but I have not noticed any increase in earnings whatsoever. Maybe small thumbnails do not attract so much attention when placed on a page that already contains a significantly larger photograph.
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Most publishers tend to agree that text ads generate more earnings than image ads - it is commonly believed that people associate images with advertisements and tend to ignore them. However, Google suggests running a combination of text and image ads for best results. After experimenting with both text-only ads and combinations, I tend to agree with Google's suggestion, although the difference I saw was a meager 4%.
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Even if digital cameras generate high-resolution photographs, it is a bad idea to include those in the page with ads, as they will most certainly mess up the layout of the page. Instead, publishers should generate a medium-resolution image, say 750x500 or similar, and include a link to the high-resolution version for those visitors who really need it.
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Last but not least, improving the visitor's experience is very important. Positioning photographs on top of a world map at the exact location where they were taken, similar to what I have done for my Paris and Prague albums, may be one thing that could add value to the site and make visitors want to hang around a bit more and maybe visit again.
However, certain usability features may be detrimental to earnings. For instance, providing keyboard shortcuts for navigation links may improve a visitor's ability to navigate through albums, but may also keep her hands off the mouse and make her less prone to clicking on ads. This is, of course, highly speculative, and only experimenting both with and without shortcuts can really validate the assertion.
The image on the right is a link to an example of putting
all this together. The navigation links are placed in close
proximity to the skyscraper ad unit, hopefully increasing
the probability that visitors will notice the ads as they
move back and forth through the album. The link to the
"Terms of Use" includes the name of the photograph
- as mentioned before, links are important in the way
AdSense determines the "theme" of the page.
Finally, the skyscraper ad unit has been placed to the left
not only because of Google's heat map suggestion, but also
because placing it on the right side would have caused it to
be rendered over or under the photograph as soon as the
browser window becomes too small to contain both. With this
layout, the browser will simply display a scroll bar when
the window becomes too small, but the entire content will
remain accessible, and the ad unit will always be visible.
Note however that problogger Darren Rowse, a guy with a
lot of experience in this type of online advertising, suggest placing skyscraper
ads on the right, with the idea of capitalizing on the
proximity to the scrollbar. As with everything else,
publishers should experiment and find out what works best
for their particular site.