For some time now I have followed the pack in choosing the layout of my sites. A three column design with site navigation on the left, content in the middle, and links on the right. The right hand column was reserved for my pay-per-click advertising.

I use Google Adsense pay-per-click ads as my right hand column. I was hoping this would give the visitor who did not find what they were looking for on my pages an alternative. Google does a good job of supplying ads that are relevant to your site.

There is one major flaw in this thinking.

Since people generally read from left to right and top to bottom, they usually do not even glance at the right side ads.

Your eyes will automatically go to the site title (Header) first, then travel down the left hand side (Navigation) and stop on the content. If the content is not what they are looking for they will most likely look at your navigation and see if something there catches their eye. If nothing does grab their attention, they back-button away into oblivian.

Let’s face it, the only sections a visitor to any site really needs to see are the content and the navigation.

In the three column layout desribed above, the third column (right) is ignored.

How do we get people to pay attention to our alternative instead of running back to the search engines for their answers.

Lets start with what we know. The average visitor to any site will mainly look for the content of your site, and the navigation to get a feel for what the web site is about.

For a webmaster looking to earn a living we would like our visitors to really look at the third column alternative if our own content is not what they are looking for. Using Google Adsense or some other form of pay-per-click advertising can earn you a substantial income for helping your visitors find what they are looking for.

Then where do I put the third column with the income generating ads?

Answer: In the middle.

Not centered, but between the content and the navigation sections.

In affect, this forces the reader to view your ads as their eyes travel to your site navigation on the far right side.

Now they get a quick look at the ads being offered before they check out your navigation.

For me this little trick brought my click-through rate from about 1-2% using the old layout to 5% with the new one.

Try it out. Let me know if you see the same results as I did.

I have been taking up way too much time on site design and not enough time on content.

I really think I have some sort of a design disorder. I have recurring dreams about the layout of my site, and wake up in a cold sweat. Very disturbing if you ask me.

I can’t stop making small changes to the look of my blog. I spend hours trying to make little boxes behave the way I want them, get the font just right and don’t even get me started on the whole choosing the right colors thing.

Well, after weeks of tinkering around I think I am finally happy with the results of the look and feel of my site.

I recently converted my old site to one powered by WordPress. An excelent user friendly Blog backend.

There is an entire community of people making plugins, add features that are easy to install and configure. Plus there are hundreds of free themes available for you to choose from. You can also customize these themes to you liking.

I started with the WordPress theme Impact by Abelgraphics, but my end result looks nothing like the original. In reality the original theme is very good and I could have used it out of the box, but my disorder made me change almost everything.

I am really just a code hacker (my coding is not pleasing to the eye yet).

I may consider cleaning up the code a little and place this as a new theme for wordpress.

If enough of you out there would want to use this site as a theme, let me know and I will see what I can do.

Will you build your own site, or use a template?

Your web site is the most important part of running an on line business. Your site is really your store front, and a visitors first impression of your company.

Now it is time to create your web site. Don’t get discouraged, it is not as hard as it sounds.
Using templates and pre-formated affiliate links make this mainly a cut and paste job.

You are going to need to know some basics about writing web pages. If you don’t know anything about HTML it is time to learn. I would suggest getting some books, or just taking some on line tutorials on HTML. You just need to know enough to be able to cut and paste, and know where to cut and paste.

There are many free HTML editors available so I will not list them here. I will tell you that I used the free version of AceHTML to design my site.

Viscom Media - AceHTML
Download it, play with it, get to know web pages..

To view the pages you are designing you will need a web server on you computer. The best web server available is FREE. With a web server running on your PC, you will be able to test your site before uploading it to you hosted site.

Apache is an open source web server that runs on windows and Linux.
Apache Web Server

I suggest templates to start
It is rewarding to design you own site. To create something from scratch always gives me a sense of accomplishment. This is entirely up to you. Are you creative? Do you know how to design a web page?

Don’t worry if you answered no to both of those questions. There are many free templates available on line for you to choose from. To start I would search the web for some templates that interest you and play with them in whatever HTML editor you choose to use.

Free Site Templates
Templates Box
Free Web Templates