Recently had a client enquire about having Google Adsense on their site, these are the small Google adverts you see traditionally at the top and to the right of webpages and similar adverts are embedded within Google Search Results (adwords).
I believe some sites lend themselves to having these adverts on, sites that are for information / portals (like the padi idc guide but other ‘standard’ business websites for small businesses would do well not to use adsense, my reasons are:
- It ‘cheapens’ the look feel of the site.
- Could raise suspicion from website visitors.
- Brings in only moderate income 1% of visitors clicking on an advert isn’t uncommon.
- Takes a valuable site visitor to another competing site and could lose you the conversion from site visitor to client / customer.
- Allows competitors to advertise on your site for free (if their ad is not clicked on).
Therefore I would advise most small businesses with a standard brochure type site that they should concentrate on something else for their site like fresh new content / a blog etc..
