Semalt Warns Why Too Many Ads Can Hurt Your Google Ranking


Table Of Content

  1. Introduction
  2. Negative Impact Of On-Site Ads On Your Website
  3. How To Optimize Your Website's Usage Of Ads
  4. Tips For Boosting Your Google Ranking
  5. Conclusions

Introduction

With the billions of websites on the internet and more being added each day, you can imagine how many on-site ads are on the internet? You'll notice that most of these popular websites, particularly news websites and independent blogs have this. They normally use these ads to generate revenue for their businesses / websites, and that's understandable. 

But what's not understandable is that these ads are growing more obstructive and frustrating each new day. Why? They keep popping up, thereby disrupting the normal website accessibility flow. 

Some considered on-site ads as an integral way of gaining website revenue and also a critical way of driving traffic to one's website. 

However, too many on-site ads can negatively impact your website performance. Here are some reasons why on-site ads, particularly excess usage, can affect your Google ranking and overall website performance.


Negative Impact Of On-Site Ads On Your Website

I. It Makes Your Site Look Overly Casual Or Spammy

When someone searches for something on the internet and clicks on SERP links, they are not interested in a site with flashy ad banners or annoying pop-ups. The only reason that they will be interested in your site is if it is relevant to what they are looking for. If your site does not contain the information, products, or services they seek or all that is overshadowed by ads, they'll most likely exit your site as fast as possible. 

And you know what that means - high bounce rate! Of course, you know that a high bounce rate also affects your Google ranking, website visibility and overall website performance. This is because Google would feel your website is not relevant enough to keep people engaged for long. Successful website promotion provides genuine useful content, keeps the visitor engaged and makes them want to return.

II. They Deflect Your SEO Strategies And Campaigns

A major reason why on-site ads can hurt your Google ranking is that they remove the importance of search engine optimization. Your on-site ads are basically just text and images on your site, and they are not closely tied to the keywords you are trying to rank for. For example, if someone searches for dog collars and your onsite ads are the text links under each dog collar, you will probably get a lot of traffic. 

Still, it is unlikely that your website will perform very well because those keywords aren't crucial to your website. When you're trying to rank for very competitive keywords, your campaigns would be ineffective if your website keeps ranking for the ads' keywords rather than specific keywords related to your website, products, and services. If your website is not well optimized, you are just wasting your time on an Onsite Ad campaign that does not add value to your business.


III. They Affect The Website's Usability

Another reason on-site ads are bad for your website is that they are annoying for users to follow. In the past, it was easy for companies to trick users into clicking on their links by placing them on web pages where they had no bearing or relevance, such as product reviews. But because search engines now give great importance to a website's layout and usability, you cannot fool users into thinking that you care about them by putting them on web pages where they will have no effect. Users are savvy these days, and if you want to have success with your online marketing campaign, you cannot afford to ignore this rule. So, never let your ad usage affect your website's usability.

How To Optimize Your Website's Usage Of Ads

Yes, you want to use ads, and that's fine. But without using ads the right way, you'll be burning your hard work on your website and also killing the site. So, here's how to use ads appropriately without turning your site into an ads dump.

I. Limit Pop-Ups

When browsing the internet via mobile devices, most people have little or no patience for pop-ups. This is because they can be annoying, distracting, and time-wasting. Pop-ups might seem insignificant on desktops and laptops, but on phones, most people just can't stand them. And even on computers, pop-ups are still just as annoying. So, you should limit the appearance of pop-ups to remain Google's friend.

II. Limit Distraction From Regular Ads

Ads might seem like an additional method of making money through your site, but expect your site to bear the brunt when used excessively. Like pop-ups, regular ads can be frustrating, annoying, and distracting, particularly if they are irrelevant to anything the user likes. They could make your website slow and even make it look spammy. So, you should try to limit the number of ads that appear on your site to make it remain user and Google-friendly. Moreover, Google crawlers are lazy. They hardly crawl sites with excess ads.

III. The Right Placement

When you are choosing on-site ads, you need to select the ones displayed in a manner that is most natural for users of the search engines. This means that you should not only focus on the highest page rank and placement of ads, but you should also make sure that they are relevant to the theme of your website. Many of the on-site ads' providers will supply you with great ads that are themed to your site so your website can still look charming and attractive.

The search engines are what your visitors land on after typing in a keyword, and the ads that are displayed are what will pull them there. Not putting much thoughts into your on-site ads placement strategy might seem fine if you are just trying to compete with the other sites for the second and third pages of SERP, but if you want to be a leading site, ranking top, you need to make sure that you limit your ads usage and also place the few ads you use appropriately.

Tips For Boosting Your Google Ranking

You can do tons of things to make sure that your website gets more traffic and generates more revenue even without excessive ads.

I. Post Topnotch Content

Content is king and when it comes to the World Wide Web, getting ranked high is in relation to your content. So, one of the most important things to consider when aiming for high website performance is your content quality. Content is what allows a site to get indexed by the search engines and categorized correctly. This means that specific keywords should be used in your site content to allow the search engines to pick up on these keywords and place your site correctly.



As well as using these right keywords, it would be best if you avoided over-utilizing them as this will hurt your chances of being found by the search engine. Asides from that, your content has to be informative enough to keep the visitors hooked and engaged. Boring or sappy content just can't do that. Of course, you need to post frequently as well. The only way to rank high and Google and keep on ranking high is to post constantly. Feed your readers often; they are your babies.

II. Boost Your Loading Speed

People can't afford to spend much time on a page while waiting for it to load, particularly when using mobiles yet, your website is bound to be slow if it has many on-site ads. If your site loads slowly, they'd log out fast and move on to the next website to get the information they seek. And that leads to a high bounce rate - Google's ultimate excuse to de-rank your site.

This is why you should endeavor to boost your website's loading speed and reduce your usage of ads. You can use Semalt's speed analyzer to test your site's loading speed. Also, Semalt's website specialist can help carry out technical adjustments on your site to make it user-friendly.

III. Use Rich Titles, Descriptions And Meta Tags

One of the essential SEO tips is to work on your site's titles. It would help if you used catchy but click-bait-free titles. And of course, you should use keyword-rich titles because keywords are the backbone of your whole SEO campaign. It is these title tags and meta tags that help the search engines find your site. If you have a good title and description, then you will find that your site is more likely to show up when a person searches for a related topic.


IV. Strengthen Your Backlinking Campaign

The next thing you should do is to work on your backlinking strategy. The pages of your site should have high-quality links (both internal and external). If you have lots of external links from other top-notch sites related to yours, this will help boost your Google ranking. 

It is also possible to build internal links to boost your Google ranking. So, endeavor to link posts on your sites to several of your other web pages related to that particular content. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more chance you have of getting higher rankings.

V. Don't Joke With Keywords.

The final tip is to make sure that your website content is updated and rich with keywords. If it isn't, then the search engines will find it difficult to rank your site, and therefore you may never get the visitors you want to your site. Make sure that you rewrite any content that isn't original to try and get more natural links from other websites. If you write your own blog posts, it pays to include your own keywords in the blog posts to help your Google ranking. 

The search engines favor more organic search results, so ensuring that your website and your site content are well optimized will give you the best possible results. Tips for boosting your Google ranking may be difficult to understand at first, but once you start using them, you will soon realize just what they can do for you. You may also not see results overnight, but with a bit of patience, you will start to see improvements within a short time.

Conclusion

Most SEO managers advise that on-site ads should be avoided if possible, but if you at all feel the need to use them for revenue generation, do limit their usage and ensure that only those relevant to your website. Also, they should only look malicious or spammy. Else, they'll still bring down your website's performance.

Hopefully, now that you've read this article, you now have a better understanding of what you can do to improve your on-site ads and therefore improve your search engine rankings. Onsite ads are not all about relevancy, but once you know what works best for your site, you'll notice a positive difference. You can consult Semalt on how to use ads in a way that boosts your site.