samedi 10 mars 2012

The Layouts Exp2 and 3

Exp2

The above layout is great for mini-sites with just a handful of pages. What about larger sites with 30+ pages?

In such a case, we simply incorporate a menu into the layout and keep everything else the same. The navigation unit (list of pages) and link unit is removed from the sidebar. The rest of the layout remains the same.


Let’s take a look at a real world example of such a layout.


As you can see, the layout remains largely the same. The only difference is that we now have a drop-down menu, and the sidebar has just one ad unit.
Such a layout gives a slightly lower CTR than the first one, but for larger sites with dozens of pages, it is pretty effective.

Exp3

This example is also good for mini-sites in certain niches. I don’t recommend it over the other first layout, but if you want some variety, you can give it a shot:

I have said it before and I will say it again: blogs do not convert as well as static pages. However, if you absolutely have to use a blog style layout, make sure you get a clean, flexible template. One such template I highly recommend is the Thesis Theme from DIYThemes.com. Another good theme is the Heat
Map Theme at
http://heatmaptheme.com/

An important factor you must keep in mind is to never put up the whole post on the homepage. Instead, use Wordpress’s inherent functionality to show just a snippet o f the post with a link to “Read More”. Take a look at

TechCrunch.com to understand what I’m talking about:


This would compel the visitor to click on the “Read More” button to get the full post. This has two advantages:
1. It increases your page views. If you were to sell ads based on CPM in the future, this would come very handy.
2. On the full post page, you could display an ad directly below the article headline, like in a static page.

You can break down a post in Wordpress by simply editing a post, placing the cursor at the desired spot where you want to break down the post, and clicking the “Insert More tag” button:


For any future sites you make, try to use pages instead of posts – you will see a much better CTR that way.

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