An eye tracking study, which was performed by usability expert Jakob Nielsen, to conduct usability by users for eye tracking, has been released recently. It was revealed that the online barrier blindness is worsening everyday. Mr. Nielsen believes that the banner ads that you see don’t really receive a light focus from skimmers, scanners and other reader. But in fact he stated that non-ad content in the same area did not receive any light focus either.

Nielsen also says that to his own disappointment the best way to have people take a look at your ads when they come onto your site is to trick the user into making the ads look like content. Almost like in advertisements found in magazines and newspapers. He also suggests that you look for the very small advertisement notice on top. But it does not necessarily mean that a 300 x 300 AdSense ad will be the first thing that people will see and automatically click on it.

Another study that was conducted actually cautions webmasters from making these advertisements annoying, offensive or obnoxious. Most webmasters know that and others need a gentle reminder. It has been said that nine out of ten American were less likely to purchase items from ads that they found to be annoying or even offensive. Also 7 out of 10 said that they were more likely than not to remember the advertisements.

While Ask’s ads did have the web industry talking about them, the survey was revealed   that about 95 percent of adults from the United States have purchased an item that was associated with it. Some people find the Ask commercials a bit offensive and others don’t think they are offensive but they do admit that they are annoying. Sometimes a great original commercial idea is not enough to launch a great campaign.

The moral of the story is that you don’t have to get annoying ads or even flashy ads in order to get people to click on your site, make the users search for your content. Try incorporating ads into the web design itself and use colors and font sizes that will grab the readers attention. Try to avoid the regular site colors.
 
If you want to know more about the process of eye-tracking it-self, go to eye-tracking article on wikipedia.