The answer of course is D, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at some of the sites that pop up in Google searches these days. Sites often feel the need to put ads in "prime" locations (read, where the user expects to see the content) under the assumption that these ad spots will bring in more revenue than those positioned in less obtrusive areas. I've even see pages where the entire page above the scrollbar was filled with advertisements and sponsorhsips. I argue here that any short-term revenue gains caused by placing ads in these disruptive slots will be more than outweighed by the reduction in the mutual trust between you and your visitors that this kind of trickery inevitably produces. To do this, I will attempt to outline what I see as the key principles of the new revolution in online advertisement.

1) Rethinking Advertisement Positioning - To Disrupt is to Deceive

When visitors come to your site, they come looking for one thing: your content. No matter where they came from or how they heard about you, they are there to absorb the gestalt of your website. Therefore, I argue that to optimize your ad revenue by placing advertisements in areas where users are looking for content is inherently deceptive. If their eyes dart naturally to a specific area of your webpage, it is solely because they expect to find content there. Not providing content in this area, and instead displaying an advertisement for the sole reason that you think it will bring you more money, that it will benefit your bottom line, is a betrayal of the trust that your visitors placed in you when they clicked on a link to your site or typed your address into their browser.

So where can you put advertisements? Studies show that advertisements placed at the end of an article tend to be well-received, as this is at the point where the visitor must decide what his next action should be. Inline advertisements, in which the advertisments are embedded into the text itself and only appear when your users roll over a highlighted word or phrase, also offer a non-disruptive and user-friendly means of generating revenue, and at the same time decrease the overall percentage of your page that is dedicated to ads at any given time.

2) Rethinking Advertising's Purpose - It's Not About the Money

Google Adsense has dramatically changed the face of advertising. With Adsense, ads can be targeted to display (in theory) relevant and complementary websites. In this way, advertisements can actually provide a service to your users. More than ever before, ads can be informative and helpful. For instance, if you sell bicycles on your website, your ads could display links to bicycle repair shops or bicycle accessories stores. In this way, ads can actually add value to your site. Ads can become an asset to your webpages, rather than a disruptive nuisance.

Think about the examples of good, non-disruptive advertising listed above. Each of them provides a service to your visitors. Ads at the bottom of an article help your visitors decide where to go next, and ideally offer them sites with relevant, "learn more" information. Adds embedded in the text only appear when your visitors run their mouses over a highlighted word or phrase. If they run their mouse over a given phrase, they are presumably interested in learning more about that phrase. Your ads can assist them with this task. Stop thinking about ads as neccessary cash cows and start thinking about them as providing a service to your visitors and you'll be amazed at the level of trust that develops among your visitors. With a great product or service, you can turn that trust into buzz, and that buzz into more ad revenue than you could ever dream of.