Hi Buyseech, users scan a website or page from the top left diagonally across. You can draw a line from the top left corner of your page down to the bottom right corner and that's generally where the visitor's eyes scan at first glance. This is usually referred to as a "heat map" orientation.

So the best way to take advantage of this is to place your main ad as far to the top left as possible.

Another interesting finding is that its been shown that if faces appear on a page, users eyes are attracted to them first. So if you want to pull the eye in a particular direction, you can place an image of a visually appealing person anywhere along that line to create a "fixation" point. The eye scan will generally turn vertical at the fixation point and if your ad is below that... well, you see where this is going.

For an example of how all this fits together in a real world site (using Amazon ads), take a look here > Creating a Product Review Site with the new Amazonia Template for ClickBump Engine*|*clickbump.com

the absolute best performance on any ad is where its most visible to the user. The further to the top and left the better

Thanks Clickbump,

I will put this info to good use. Especially the amazon site witht he digital camera carousel looks very appealing.

Will also check it out on some adsense sites. One questions doh ; do you use the "leaderboard" adsense box, because the links are clustered together or can you use the big block and 300x250 block the same way? Your thoughts?

Sincerely, Buyseech

I'd say that if you can, just avoid the widgets because they really don't convert all that well. Contextual ads or creating your own little gallery is the way to go - people can easily notice the Amazon and its way better to lead them into it through great content and relevant affiliate links than to hope they click on the widgets; just my two cents.