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...Part 1: Intrusive Advertising
image credit: Julian Bleeker
I came across a really great educational site recently; well written materials, pedagogically sound, interesting content, the kind of stuff that teachers are always on the look out for basically...
but I won't be using it in class or recommending it to my students.
Nor will I be blogging about it, tweeting it, putting it on my blog roll, or passing the link on to contacts within my network.
Why? Because the advertising model the site uses sucks, to put it bluntly.
Okay, so I accept that advertising on the Internet is a fact of life, and I use advertising on my own sites. However, if you wish to avoid irritating people and driving them elsewhere to find content, you need to be thinking in terms of visitor experience first and foremost. Because if the visitor experience is unsatisfactory, then the odds are that people won't bother coming back or linking to your site.
Here are three types of ads that I recommend avoiding if you are running an educational blog or site:
Pop-up Windows
Not just because they are annoying, but also because the ads served to pop-up windows can be highly inappropriate.
Do I want to run the risk of seeing a row of naked female backsides popping up when I'm teaching conditionals to a group of Muslim men? Do I really need to even ask that question?
If I were you, I'd steer well clear of them. Trust me on this.
In-Text Advertising
At best, context-based advertising positioned within the text of pages is annoying, and at worst (particularly if you are teaching English as a foreign language) it can be distracting and confusing for learners. The words underlined and the ads served to the page can sometimes be pretty random, and can be mistaken for links to dictionary apps, etc.
Pay Per Click Landing Pages and Loading Screens
Ok, I've arrived at your site, and before I can view the page, you make me sit through a 30 second advertisement... and then you expect me to sit through another ad every time I want to play a quiz? Sorry, you lost me at the "this page will display in 30 seconds, after an ad from our sponsors" bit.
The same goes for quizzes that you have embedded into your blog pages. The minute that they shove advertising into my face, then that's my cue to surf off elsewhere.
Of course none of this is rocket science, but I never cease to be surprised by people who put these kind of ads on their pages and don't seem to realise that they can be a real turn-off.
Obviously, some people are more interested in making money than providing a good quality experience for visitors, but for the benefit of people who aren't of that ilk, I believe that this kind of feedback is worth sharing.
Sue
Further Reading:
On Edublogging - KalinagoEnglish
4 comments:
Good points. Looking forward to your follow up.
I can add that I never would follow people on twitter if they use twitter for advertising commercial products.
Well said.
Been there, got angry with that. Total overkill!
Thanks, Sue. I hope those people are reading.
Thanks for your comments, folks!
Hope the message gets through as well, Adam...
I suspect that some people are basically just unaware of the problems such things often throw up in the classroom, though I'm sure that others do it intentionally in the hope of turning a bit of easy cash.
I follow people on Twitter who are selling stuff sometimes if they don't give it the hard-sell Ove, but I draw the line if they are using shortening services that serve ads en-route to links they are tweeting... in fact, I unfollowed a few people a while back who started doing that.
Sue
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