Many of us beat our head around to know how some sites put Adsense text or image ads in between the content in a post in WordPress. After much research, i finally found a very simple solution to this. Here is what you need to do:

In your WordPress theme, look for a file by the name “functions.php”. Generally it is in the root of your WordPress theme folder. However, it depends on theme to theme. Don’t get confused, just find “functions.php”!

Now put the following code anywhere within your functions.php file:

function showads() {return '
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-3637220125174754";
google_ad_slot = "4668915978";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
';
}

add_shortcode('adsense', 'showads');

Note: Make sure that you replace the above Adsense code with your Adsense code, unless you want to put my ads on your site

Now save the functions.php file. There you go! You are all set to put the Adsense ads where you wish within the post in Wordpress. You can do that by just inserting the below code in the place where you want your ad to appear:

[adsense]

So whenever you write any post, just think of a best spot within your post to put “[adsense]” and you will have ads in that place!

Hope this small tip helps you make more money!

In our previous article we have discussed about Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Friendliness in Web Design. We have also discussed the importance and how crucial they are in terms of planning and designing a website. We will be covering few myths and fallacies commonly believed while designing a website to sell a product or a service in this article. So let’s get started.

The Price List must be easily accessible to the Visitors

We have seen on some websites that they try to hide the price list for their products. In some websites the price of the product is only available when they hit the “Buy” or “Order” button and to make it even worse, only after you have created an account or registered on their site. Others do have a price list but that list is buried somewhere deep in their site which cannot be accessible from the main page or the products page.

Well, we fail to understand the logic behind this. Probably, they think that if the customer does not get to see the price he will in turn click on the “Buy” or “Order” button and most probably he will buy the item. This reasoning is fallacious.

There are different types of visitors coming to your site. Let’s consider the case of a window shopper arriving at your site. While browsing through your site if they find something noteworthy on your site, they may want to make a note of the price so that they can come back for that item in future. If the price of that item is not easily found then do you think they will try to search for that price tag? Or do you think they will either click on the “Buy” button, just to see if they can find the price tag at the end of the process somewhere or will they go through the tedious process of creating an account and revealing their personal information just to find the price of that item?

Like any other serious shopper, if they cannot find the price, they prefer to simply go onto another site. Mind you this is not a street shop we are talking about, where the shopper needs to take out time and put in an effort to travel. This is Internet and your competitor is only a click away and the search engine is also more than happy to churn out thousands of other sites selling the same type of products or services as you. Few street stores do think of this as an idea not to put the price tag so that they may walk to the representative and he will get a chance to persuade the customer to buy that item. Whether or not it is a good idea for the street store, but we are dealing with the web store and it is definitely a bad idea.

No matter how you look at it but every customer will need to know the price of a product. Even the corporate customer buying for her company will look through the price and works to a budget. Hiding the price behind few buttons or links is a quick way to drive the potential customer away from your site. It’s been observed by many usability experts that the average Internet user has the attention span of a flea. If they don’t get want they want within the first few seconds of glancing at your page, they will leave and as you know there are your competitors waiting anxiously to attend them in your place.

Provide Descriptions and Pictures for Your Products

We have seen that the new web designers get carried away with the contradictory advice about how the content should be brief and to-the-point so that they can catch the Internet visitors who will give only few seconds glance to your website and decide whether to stay or go elsewhere. On the contrary, it is important for you to describe your product in detail and place few pictures of your product or screenshots if required.

The best idea which comes to my mind as of now if to take a look at Amazon.com’s website. If you notice for every item they list on their search results for a query, a brief description along with the thumbnail picture appears with a link to buy the item. If this brief description interests you then you can click on the link to get a detailed description and more information about the product.

It is a must to have a product page for each product with a long description and pictures of the product. This becomes essential especially when the product is expensive and has lot of competition. Your long description and pictures of what you’re selling is what cinches the sale. Potential customers will use the information present on that page to decide whether to buy the item or not. They look at this page and compare it with the competitor’s product. So it becomes imperative for you to mention all the significant features of your product or service on that page. Consider yourself as a salesman who is trying to promote his product to a walk-in customer and then design the web page.

All you need is to provide complete and detailed information through your product page. You also need to place the “Buy” or “Order” button at the top as well as the bottom of the product page. If the provided information is too long then you can prefer placing additional buttons somewhere in the middle of the page. Do not pass the customer through the pain of reading the entire article before they can order your product. It is easy to convince some customers and they come to your product page after deciding to buy the product. Make it easy for them to get to where they want to go within your site.

Let your Customer to Browser Your Site in whichever Way They Want

Did you ever come across a live salesperson who goes on and on about his product and does not even give you a chance of telling him that you have already decided to buy the product? You want to shout but the guy insists on finishing his tome on the product. Such a person is rare to find in real life, however, when you come across a website many designers practice this very sales tactic.

One such characteristic of such websites is that the site has a poor navigational facility. The customer cannot access other pages on the site except through a sequence of chronologically arranged steps that the author has planned. It looks like a presentation which does not allow you to leave it in the midst and go to another page. First it gives you the description, and then the first page provides you with long detailed information about the product with a link to take you to another page. Again, you have to endure the sermon on the second page before you can move on. Even if the customer has already decided to buy the product the website forces him to go through the sequence of steps before you can buy the product.

Such websites are completely engrossed in such sales tactics employed by some salesmen and give visitors a bad taste. The usability of such sites become very poor and the design of the site will decrease the impulse of the purchaser.

One of the basic rules of selling something online is that you should not force your customer to click through many pages before they reach the “Buy” or “Download” button. It is not a good practice and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the visitor. You might be able to convince the customer to buy the product but they might not like to do business with you in future. Website is not like a live salesperson, on Internet the customer can leave your website anytime and they do. Some people are on the site because they want to buy that product and do not want to read long compositions. They are there to get the product. Delaying the purchase means losing the customer. You will only hurt your business by doing this.

When we say that you must provide a detailed product page, we don’t mean that you force your customer to read that detailed description before they buy the product. The link or the button must always be readily available for the customer to order that product.

Mandatory Items on the Site Navigation Bar

If you are working on a commercial site then there are certain links which should be accessible from every page of your website. The best way to do this is to provide those links in the form of a navigation bar. If you do not know what a navigation bar is then take a look at the startwebsite.org. On the top left of every page is a series of links which give you access to the main pages of the site. it is not important for you to keep the navigation bar on the left side of the page, you can keep it on the top, right or the bottom of the page as well. However, you may have to consider few items which should always be there on the navigation bar.

Products: This will provide the customer a link to the page listing all your products. If you have too many products then categorize the pages and make them accessible from the main product page.

Order Form: As the name suggests this should point to the order form.

Price List: Providing a pricing list will improve the usability of your site and ultimately your goal.

Support: Provide a link for your customer mentioning different ways of contacting you.

About Us: Talk about yourself or your company through this page as you are the one who is selling the product and the customer should know you.

So if you follow the above mentioned guidelines you will be able to make your website a usable website because on the Internet it depends on how you design your website and whether you want your visitor to become a payable customer or not.

Remember the list you are going to see now is don’t do list. These are the points which will annoy the users and abstain from visiting your site. If you take these points literally then your website will become a history. Here are some of the don’ts for your website although they read like dos.

1. Place some or all of the content in a small frame and force the visitors to read through that small window. Don’t think that we are referring to small frame in the literal sense even if the frame is big enough; it is considered too small by most of the visitors. This trick has high annoyance value as the visitors have to go through the pain of viewing the information through that small little window and scroll up and down to see the text while the rest of the browser is full of information they are not interested in at the moment. With this strategy, users cannot maximize the window to make their reading more pleasurable or readable. By using this strategy you will be able to frustrate those visitors and as a bonus make them leave your site.

2. Disable the right click option of the browser. People tend to use the right click menu for many purposes and they can as well use the same function through the main menu bar even after you have disabled it. In any case, if your aim is to annoy the users.

3. Play background music once the user visits your site. if that is not annoying enough then make sure that you loop the music so that the visitors are plagued by it continuously while they are on your site or on every page of your website. You don’t have to bother about the choice of music as even if you pick your favorite tune it will be enough to annoy most of the visitors as one man’s meat in another man’s poison.

4. Make every link of your page to open in a new window or a new tab each time the visitor clicks on it. This happens when you put target=”_blank” to every link. This will annoy the visitors each time they try to click on a link in your site a new tab or window opens. Another reward what you get from it is that it makes your site look unprofessional.

5. Force your visitors to navigate your website using Flash. This happens when you tend to place all the content in a Flash file – text, pictures, links etc. (mind you a straight HTML page is best for any type of content). Or force the visitors who don’t have Flash plugin enabled to enable them or install them to even view your website. This will eventually drive away all mobile users, a group of users that is growing in size, as well as cripple your visitors who have come to expect certain facilities to always be available in their browsers (such as the BACK key and the ability to bookmark specific pages) when they visit websites. From then on they will be forced to work through the limited functions Flash plugin of their browser with whatever features you wish to provide. In fact, the excessive use of flash in your site might as well help you in dropping your site rate to the bottom page of the search engine listings and hence reducing the number of visitors to your site. After all, if you don’t have visitors you might not have to think of ways to annoy them.

6. Load the website with pop-up windows that open the minute visitor visits your page and leave the page. Besides, if you are not satisfied you can annoy them further by adding a pop-up window when they click on any link on your site.

7. Reduce the navigation ability of your website. Don’t put site maps or navigation bars with shortcut links to pages that your visitors will usually want to use such as the “Download” page option. If you can annoy users by forcing them to read whole pages of your text before they can find a link to move on.

So here are the seven quick ways which you can use to annoy, frustrate and irritate your visitors. If worked up on them they will even be useful in driving your regular visitors away permanently. Of course there are many other ways but the above mentioned ways are easy methods which are easily doable by any new webmaster in the field. Hence try to avoid such things and make your website simple and easy to navigate. Avoid implementing all such things which annoy and drive away the visitors from visiting your site.