I wasn’t blogging for a long time as I was busy with a number of new and exciting online marketing projects here at Search Anyway. While I was working on some web layouts I kept thinking about the typical surfers’ perception of today’s web portals and I believe that the big part of the success of an average online project is based upon two types of balance.

The information balance
The information balance is the balance between your content and the marketing tools you employ.

The visual balance
The visual balance is the balance between the text and the imagery.

The interesting thing is that the information elements and the visual elements often overlap and play two roles at the same time. Below I will describe how that happens...

Marketing tools are employed in order to monetize web traffic. Unfortunately many webmasters tend to overuse marketing tools as they want to pull maximum out their traffic. This tendency makes their web sites clattered, overwhelming and non informative. Most users try to avoid such sites and the webmasters keep loosing organic traffic. Keeping the right balance between content and marketing tools as well as chousing the tools that are appropriate to your content is critical.

Let’s take a look at the standard set of marketing tools and try to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Search Box
A search box is the very basic online marketing tool. It provides your web site with powerful functionality while not being aggressive. It is important however to place your search box at appropriate place and to make it visually appealing. Rather than using a standard HTML entry field with a standard button, consider using longer, larger and CSS enhanced text field along with a custom made and noticeable button.

There are two options of showing search results. You can show them either on your site or you can redirect the user to a public feed of your feed provider. Showing results on your site allows you to control the way they look. You can visually enhance the entries, which will increase the CTR. Adding “Related Searches” and “Popular Searches” columns is also a good idea.

Keyword Cloud
Adding a keyword cloud (or a tag cloud) to your web site is both efficient and aesthetically pleasant. While search box is a passive marketing element, a keyword cloud actively displays a number of relevant and / or profitable keywords in a variety of sizes. In fact it is nothing but a forced search. Controlling the size of each keyword allows you to set the clicking priority. In addition to static clouds there are dynamic and animated clouds.

Inline Text Links
Inline text links may seem efficient but the negative aspect of placing them is obvious. When users come across such links, they get an impression that the text they are reading is created only for the sake of placing the links. This text is no longer a trustworthy source of information; it’s just a platform for showing hidden ads.

Web Banners
Web banners play both marketing and aesthetic role on your web sites. Placing an appropriate and visually appealing banner next to your text can efficiently illustrate your content. The number of banners however should be limited on every page. Consider wide variety of mediums and banner rotators.

Text Blocks
Text blocks are efficient in a way that they are akin to showing search results without performing the actual search, which means one click instead of two. The problem with text blocks, however, is that they are everywhere. They become a typical part of any web layout. Surfers got so used to them that they tend to ignore this type of advertisement. Unlike graphic banners, text blocks also make web sites look cheap.

Popups & Popunders
Popups and popunders are very aggressive tools but most users find them annoying, which dramatically diminishes the initial efficiency. People usually do not like what they didn't ask for.

Floating Flash Banners
A floating banner is the most aggressive online marketing tool. Just like a popup or a popander it is very obtrusive (especially when it's hard to find a "close" button). This is the reason why it considerably less efficient than it may seem.