If you’ve researched regarding affiliate program resources websites you probably has discovered that AssociatePrograms.Com was among the tip-top website with Web 1.0 very classical design. Alan Gardyne (among pioneer in affiliate marketing since 1998) top affiliate programs website just finally got new look.
I accidentally drop by to his website today and figure out his website design has been revamped while, all the links and contents are remaining the same.
The old website surprisingly was very simple color and font scheme but has got attention throughout the entire internet affiliate marketers for resources. Some part of his resource was the articles can be found in articles directory. The old site I assume he is just using static html file.
Even with very classical design it also well ranked in search engines, maybe because of lots of incoming links. Thus simply proof that “Content is the king” and “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.
The New Look
The latest design looks more structured and well organized.
Perhaps now it’s using a new and customized content management system (CMS). All of the articles now has comment section, aha… how his website will grown larger
with user comments!
The font’s type now is Arial, which is a mimic to Adsense
default type face. The Adsense Ads also has been repositioned perhaps to gather more attention. In a first glance now it’s looks like AdSense Spam site!
Alan Gardyne website still not using any banner or picture ads, (you wont see any decoration pic’s like in SimplyBuzz.Com) almost all of his affiliate links and products are just written in contextual links. I believe serving own affiliate links in contextual approach may generate better click trough rather than placing picture or banner ads.
If we look back on how to increase high CTR for AdSense, the rule number one, we might want to diguise AdSense links to be as much same as our website theme and colors. The contextual text that looks like a banner will take away visitors attention.
i agree with your idea especially when we want to place our adsense, it must diguise with the links/content.
i believe that this website moved to new design not just to have a new look but want to better management cause it easier when using cms. :)
Thanks for noticing our relaunch. As one visitor remarked, “The old girl has a new dress!” The relaunch includes a new free report, “77 Ways to Get Traffic”, new articles, new sections, such as a new affiliate Knowledge Base. More improvements are planned.
The relaunch has resulted in visitors staying longer and visiting more pages. You can see some of the early reactions at the bottom of this newsletter, which announced the relaunch: http://www.associateprograms.com/articles/476/1/77-traffic-ideas