Riveting promotions designed to attract new visitors and retain existing ones can make the difference between your website taking off or fading away. However, no matter how strong your promotional graphics and copy are, if they aren’t seen, they’re essentially useless.
Knowing how to display your promotions prominently and in a way that grabs attention can quickly lead to increased clicks, conversions, and engagement. These can guide your visitors on what steps to take next or highlight specials you want them to consider.
With more than 43% of websites on the internet powered by WordPress, knowing how to correctly and clearly display promotions on a WordPress site is essential. Fortunately, the platform supports multiple plugins and tools that make it easier to get your promotions noticed.
Why Clear Promotional Display Matters
Because of the constant influx of online content, time is a precious commodity for website users. Most visitors to your website will not read your content in depth. Instead, they skim, searching for headlines, keywords, or graphics that catch their eye.
Promotions that are visually appealing and placed in a logical and visible layout are more likely to grab visitors’ attention and cause them to pause their skimming to investigate. When this happens, they can discover more about your site, brand, and product or service.
If your promotional content is clear, concise, and informative, this pause translates into trust. As users find out more about your business, they will place greater trust in what they are seeing and be more willing to engage further.
Depending on your industry, clarity in your promotions can be the make-or-break factor. For example, websites advertising the best casino bonuses, outlining wagering requirements, withdrawal limits, and game eligibility, are far more likely to be trusted by players searching for safe and reliable online casinos. Transparent operators who clearly explain their offers not only build trust but also improve visibility in a crowded iGaming market. Conversely, businesses offering subscription software while failing to explain payment terms, renewal conditions, and hidden fees are less likely to attract traffic and sales.
Placement and Visibility
The clearest promotional offers will be wasted if positioned poorly. Where you put your ads is almost as important as the content itself and the call to action you want them to deliver. Three common areas work well for prime advertising positions.
Above the Fold: The area at the very top of a page — known as being “above the fold” — is one of the most valuable spaces on your website. This section, visible immediately without scrolling, is the perfect place to catch visitors’ attention and ensure maximum visibility for ongoing promotions.
Whether placing a banner across your webpage or adding a short promotional message beneath your welcome text, promotions located above the fold usually perform better than those placed elsewhere.
Sidebars, Headers, and In-Content: For sites with blog posts or other long-form content, sidebars are often the best option. These scroll with content, keeping promotions visible and drawing the reader’s eye.
If sidebar positioning isn’t available or ideal, header promotions can also be used. These, while still effective, have the drawback that visitors may scroll past them immediately to find the content they came for.
To offset this, in-content placement can ensure your promotions are seen as visitors engage with your content. This works especially well when the advertisement is relevant to the topic of the content.
Callouts and Sticky Bars: Another prime placement option is the lightbox callout, which appears as soon as a page loads, or a sticky bar attached to the site header. Both approaches maximize engagement by appearing prominently and requiring user action to be dismissed.
Sticky bars are particularly effective because they appear above the fold and remain visible as the user scrolls. However, they are usually limited to a bright colour background and text, lacking the visual depth of other placements.
Using WordPress Widgets for Promotions
WordPress natively supports promotion placement in a variety of website locations, including sidebars, banners, and in-content areas. The process for adding content to each location is similar and straightforward.
Sidebars
For sidebar placement of promotional content, navigate to your main widget screen to see the available spaces on your webpage. You’ll usually find this screen under your Appearance settings.
Expanding the “main sidebar” will give you the option to add blocks. Using a media block, you can then upload your prepared promotion.
Banners
Adding banners follows a similar process. From your site’s Appearance settings, decide whether you’d like the banner in the header, footer, or another section. Add a new media block, select your content, and resize it to display properly.
In-content
In-content promotions are among the easiest to place. These can be added as regular media items when uploading your main content, and adding them doesn’t require any special steps.
Plugins
For popups, callouts, and other advanced placements, you’ll need a plugin. These can be chosen based on your needs.
For example, if you’re opening a new physical store and want to highlight its location, our GmapsWidget plugin works well. If you want a pop-up that every new visitor sees, Popup Maker is a likely choice.
Promotion Design and Mobile Optimization
Choosing the right placement is only part of the process. You also need to ensure that your design is appealing and works well on smaller screens, which most visitors will use to access your site.
Design
Regardless of the graphics you use, readability comes first. Promotional content should always be clear, legible, and concise.
To achieve this, limit font usage to a maximum of two styles, ensure proper contrast between text and background, and make your call to action stand out clearly. Failing to do so could result in your promotion being ignored or looking visually jarring.
Size and Optimization
Because many visitors are likely to visit on a smartphone, your promotions should be designed with smaller screens in mind. Enlarge text where needed, particularly for horizontal banners, and ensure that, when resized, all text and graphics remain legible and clear.
When uploading promotional images, double-check that they are correctly sized and displayed and not automatically cropped. If you’re using a plugin, also check whether you can upload different images for different devices.
Testing and Measuring Effectiveness
After designing the perfect promotion and carefully placing it, the job is only half done. You’ll only know if your work is effective if visitors actively engage with your promotion.
As such, make sure you carry out testing and measure key metrics to see how you’re doing. A/B testing can help drive your investigation, and it can be easily implemented through widgets like Nelio A/B Testing.
Other tools, like Google Analytics, can also be used to see if your promotions lead to a higher click-through rate (CTR). Plugins can also be used to measure other key performance indicators to ensure your promotions are having the effect you’re looking for.
Conclusion
Clarity is one of the most important aspects of online promotions, as it fosters trust and helps build a relationship with your visitors. However, even promotions with impeccable clarity may be undermined by poor placement, weak design, or the lack of testing.
Keeping proper design techniques in mind will make your promotions clearer to visitors. Likewise, leveraging the many WordPress widgets and plugins can help optimize promotion placement and visibility. Altogether, these efforts should (hopefully) deliver the results you’re hoping for.