Please click this content! It’s not an ad, I swear

If people are getting more savvy at recognizing ads and expressing their dislike for flashy ads that wonk them over the head, the obvious solution would seem to be to make the ads more subtle. Even blend them into the content. Even, perhaps, disguise them as content so people click them by accident?

Way to turn me off as a reader.

If all you want is to make $100 Adsense bucks so you can get that MP3 player your mom refused by buy you, maybe that’s an acceptable answer for you. But for those of us building sites for the long haul, I don’t think this is the way to go.

The solution I’ve chosen (you can see it here) is to have the ads but separate them from the content. Then again, I don’t mess with PPC much. Mostly, my ads are bought slots from clients (although AdBrite works both ways) because I can’t be bothered to work at manipulating people into clicking something when I can just sell ads steadily, keeping them discreetly visible but definitely still “ad-like”.