Above The Fold

I participate is a few blog ad networks as well as having priority advertising on at least one of my blogs.  What I quickly learned is the "above the fold".  Essentially some advertisers including feebies want their ads or widgets shown in the first half of your blog page without having to scroll.  In some ways this becomes quite restrictive to a blog design so unless those making that demand are paying good dollars for that space the real answer becomes take a hike.  

The problem is some of the free blog advertising networks demand you place their widget above the fold.  I've dealt with this several times and trust me unless who ever is making the demand is paying a good monthly income, chances are very good I will just pass them by.  The other day I came across a nice blog badge exchange I thought I would like to participate in.  They demanded in return for a little free traffic to be above the fold.  That's nice.  So I should knock out my high paying advertisers in favour of a free widget that will pay me nothing other than if I'm lucky a bit of traffic AND I would have to seriously do a major overhaul of my blog design to in any way remotely get the widget to fit above the fold. 

The insistence of being above the fold in this manner is just pure arrogance.  I've dealt with a lot of professional advertisers and even they will work with your blog design, not expecting you to do a complete overhaul just to get their ad to fit.  The three top blog advertising networks (Adgitize, CMFAds, Entrecard) none specifiy where the widget can appear on your blog although Adgitize does specify that at least one ad unit must be above the fold to be considered a preferred publisher.  Other than that it can be anywhere.  It is to your advantage to have the widget as close to or above the fold as possible for these advertisers.

Let's think about this.  We bloggers spend hours and hours and hours, designing and writing good content for our blogs.  We work hard!  Then some arrogant widget advertiser comes along that at best will give you a bit of traffic but proceeds to dictate where to put the widget to the point it messes up your blog design.  My question becomes when is it too much.  As bloggers it seems to me we listen to all these outside influences.  Our above the fold space is no longer ours even though we are the ones doing the work.  At some point though the above the fold gets too congested to the point it does drive readers away while cramping your creativity and you can certainly see that on some blogs.

The blog advertising network making this demand was quiety told to flip off.  I removed their widget so in reality the loss is theirs not mine.  And blogging life goes on...

Garden Gnome
©2009-2011