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Manually placing ads on your website can be complex. It requires careful consideration of your audience and regular adjustment of formats and placements to balance revenue and user experience (UX). But there are tools that can help you simplify that process. On Squarespace websites, you can integrate with Google AdSense, which offers Auto ads, and its new ad intents format, to remove the guesswork and help you start earning from your website.
Read on to learn what your ad options are, considerations for placing ads while prioritizing browsing experience, and how Google AdSense strategies can help you make successful placement choices.
Note: This Making It article was created in collaboration with GoogleAdSense.
Understanding display ads
Content creators and website owners starting out often struggle with decisions like what ad formats to use. When planning out your ads, your options will typically be:
Banner ads
These ads appear at the top, bottom, or sides of a webpage.
Advantages: They’ve been around for a long time, so they may be familiar to you and they’re relatively easy to set up.
Disadvantages: They can be disruptive to readers and have a tendency to be easily ignored as people scroll through the page.
Siderail ads
These ads are placed in the sidebar of a website page.
Advantages: They're visually appealing, and can be effective if placed well.
Disadvantages: They can be ineffective if the sidebar isn’t easy to spot or if there are too many.
In-content ads
These ads are placed within the content of your page.
Advantages: They're effective if the ad connects well to the content, and can be less disruptive.
Disadvantages: To fit them in well, you’ll need to do more planning and potentially adjust your content.
Most of these ad types can be placed above the fold or below the fold. These terms refer to whether you need to scroll down to see the ad (below the fold) or not (above the fold).
Above-the-fold ad placements are valuable, since the visitor sees them as soon as they land on the web page. That means visitors are more likely to notice and engage with these ads, resulting in higher clickthrough rates. As a result, advertisers often consider the top portion of a web page as the most valuable real estate.
Below-the-fold ad placements benefit from visitors who scroll to explore more content. These placements capture the attention of engaged visitors who are actively seeking additional information, making them valuable if you’re looking to convey more complex messages or storytelling.
Balancing earnings and user experience
Regardless of the format you choose and where you decide to place ads on your site, it’s important to strike a balance between monetization and UX. Ads that clutter the page, distract from the content, and disrupt readability all hurt your end goal. The less pleasant your website experience is, the fewer people who will stick around to see or click your ads. And some of those visitors might not come back.
Ads are more likely to be successful if they:
Don’t distract from your main page content: If an ad is so large or disruptive that it keeps someone from browsing your site, they’re likely to exit.
Don’t disrupt your page layout: In-content and sidebar ads are often successful because they don’t meaningfully change the way a page is laid out or how someone reads it.
Fit your brand: Ads for products that don’t suit your brand or that don’t fit your tone of voice are unlikely to connect with your visitors.
Load quickly: Slow-loading ads can also negatively impact UX and cause people to exit your page
Read the full guide to using ads on your website
Automatically manage your ad placements with Google AdSense
One way to get help with your ad placements is to rely on a third-party tool, like Google AdSense. The AdSense tool, which integrates with Squarespace websites, includes a feature called Auto ads, which can recommend the best placements for your ads.
While AdSense shows you where to position ads on your site and optimizes them based on your specific site and readers, you maintain the control. You can override the technology and decide which ads are shown and what brands you advertise. That way, you get suggested placements for the best success, but can apply your own knowledge of your audience to make sure the ads are something they’ll actually want to click on.
How to use ad intents placements
Auto ads have several automated formats. A great format to start with is ad intents. Ad intents places links, anchors, and chips throughout your content, then shows visitors who interact with them relevant, organic search results with embedded ads. This is a great option if you’re new to monetizing your website and worried about negatively impacting your readers’ experience, since these ads are extremely non-intrusive on the page.
It works by scanning your website for opportunities to naturally place relevant search ads. Based on your content and what your users may be interested in, ad intents automatically:
Converts existing text on your page into ad intent links
Places ad intent anchors that appear at the bottom of your page
Places ad intent chips at the end of paragraphs on your page
Ideally, that visitor sees an ad for something they were already looking for and clicks through, which can help to increase your earnings. But when they close the ad intent dialog, they stay on the same page on your site, so you don’t lose out on their traffic or engagement and they don’t lose their place.
Even if you currently display ads on your website, ad intents offer another way to earn from website ads without significantly changing your page design or creating more distractions for your visitors.
If you already have a Google AdSense account, it’s relatively straightforward to turn on ad intents.
Click on the hamburger menu on the left hand side of the AdSense panel.
Turn on Auto Ads and check the ad intents checkbox.
Click apply to the site.
No matter what display ads you put on your website, testing and adjustment is incredibly important. Your audience and website are unique, so the placements or ads a tool suggests or that you choose manually may not always be the right ones.
Take the time to check in on your ad performance monthly or weekly. If you see an ad performing less well than expected, consider whether the content or the placement might be the issue. If it’s the placement or type of ad, you might see other indicators, like lots of exits from the page where an ad sits, for example. With time and close attention to your audience, you’ll develop a set of strategies that work best for your website.