Where do you place your toilet paper holder?

Most married men have “you-won't-believe-what-my-mother-in-law-did” stories to share with their friends. (Women, on the other hand, have “you-won't-believe-what-my-husband-did” stories. But I digress…) Not too long ago, I helped my mother-in-law install a toilet roll holder in her new bathroom. Hardly a newsworthy event, you're thinking to yourself, and normally I'd agree. And yet it's oddly relevant to our AdSense discussions.

Toilet roll placement is a crucial aspect in any bathroom design. Ideally, you want the roll within easy reach, but not so close that it interferes with your use of the washroom. My mother-in-law insisted that the toilet roll not be visible to anyone standing outside the washroom. Let's ignore the oddity of this request — after all, a washroom is the one room in the house where you'd expect to find a toilet roll. The problem was that there was only one spot that the toilet roll could go to meet that request and still be within reach of the person sitting on the toilet, and that was on the side of the vanity, right at elbow height. So that's what I did, because we weren't able to convince her otherwise.

So the toilet paper roll is (mostly) hidden from anyone walking by the washroom. But it sure is inconvenient to those who are using the washroom, because we keep hitting our elbows on it when we go to sit on the toilet seat. And you also have to reach awkwardly across your body to pull out some toilet paper.

Ad placement on web pages is a lot like installing a toilet roll holder. The most prominent locations — the ones that Google likes to talk about in their AdSense heat map — are also the ones that are most intrusive. So there's a balancing act you have to perform. Do you want the ads placed where they'll generate the most clicks, but will annoy your visitors? Or should you place them more unobtrusively and live with lower earnings?

I have no specific answers to give, because it depends on your goals for the site. But if you want repeat visitors, I'd suggest that you'd be better off with unobtrusive ads. So think closely about where you want your toilet paper holder placed. Everyone who use's my mother-in-law's bathroom sure notices the toilet paper holder now, but it certainly doesn't encourage repeat visits.

But maybe that's the point?

Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book. Or add it directly to your Amazon shopping cart!

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