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So, you did everything right, you bought or received a cool product (one that I and many other people happen to be looking for reviews on) and you wrote a detailed review, you included pictures, you did some creative link building and you ranked well for the related product review search terms. Awesome, congrats on getting that accomplished.

Now for the bad news. I’m never going to get to read your amazing review or click your affiliate link to buy the product.

I know that probably sounds mean, so let me explain before you throw virtual tomatoes and flaming bags of poop at me.

I searched for reviews of a particular product (No, I’m not naming names or pointing fingers so you can run off and search it to see the ranked url, so use your imagination here, mmmkay?) and I skimmed the page of results that Google gave me and looked at the descriptions and titles of the top five or six before I clicked on one. I was looking for information on a very specific aspect of this product and the third ranked URL mentioned this aspect in their description so it was naturally my first click. The URL sounded sort of mommy-blogger-ish, so I thought even better, I can support a work at home mom in the process here, awesome.

Sounds good so far, right? Unfortunately, this is where things go upside down on our little journey.

I clicked and the new tab opened and the little “thinking” icon started to spin. The header came up with some navigation at the top, and a big banner ad, and more icon spinning. And more icon spinning. Sidebar started to load, and more icon spinning. At this point there are about 20 ads on my screen and no sign of the review yet. More spinning. Wow, I need a coffee refill, so I head off to the kitchen.

When I get back from refilling my coffee mug with warm caffeinated joy there is a picture of the product and the beginning of the review, but the entire post still had not loaded and there were somewhere around 30 – 50 ad buttons on the page. I didn’t count for an exact number and the page was not done loading yet, and I closed the tab and went back to the search engine to find another review.

Just some food for thought as we head into the new year. Less is more when it comes to sidebar clutter and banner advertisements. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have any, and I know you love your friends blogs and ad swaps are great, but that doesn’t mean you need hundreds of 125×125 buttons on every page of your website via the sidebar.

Have a great day and happy blogging!
Kind Regards,