F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content

What does an F-shaped pattern for reading web content have to do with ad placement? It turns out a great deal if you want your website to generate income. There are many different ideas about ad placement on web pages. Ad size also is another factor to consider. The number of advertisements on a page and what kind of ads to run on a page. With so many different factors how does a web designer deal with these issues? How do they still have time to write great content that is the cornerstone of SEO?

F-shaped pattern for Reading Web Content

The picture above represents a study that was conducted in 2006 regarding how readers scanned a page. This study leads to the F-shaped pattern for reading web content. It is also one of the reasons, Google decided to remove ads from the right-hand side of their SERPs.

Basically, readers will scan from left to right and also from top to bottom. They will notice and pay attention to information located in these areas. This includes advertisements, content, images, and videos located in these areas. Images and videos have changed this pattern somewhat, attracting readers’ eyes first. After they have digested the image content, they then appear to revert back to the F- Pattern scanning of the page.

If you are running a website with advertising on it, this is one factor you may want to consider in terms of ad placement. Right-hand located ads will not do as well as those located in the upper right-hand area of the page.