One of the quirks of the modern news website is the deluge of advertisements that frequently interrupt your browsing. Ballymena Today just tells the story.
But, it’s true that you never quite know what you might get when you visit a website these days.
Perhaps you’ve clicked on a link on social media and, within seconds the news article or blog post that you intended to read has been obscured by ads that pop up randomly. They might even start to play a video, fill the entire screen or create another window or tab in your browser.
On mobile devices these full screen interruptions can be infuriating.
This kind of thing used to only happen on certain types of sites but, now it is everywhere.
Ballymena Today is different
We have always intended that Ballymena Today be different. You may have noticed that we do have sponsors in the side-bar of our site. This method is perhaps old-school by modern web-advertising standards but, we are passionate about making sure Ballymena Today just tells the story. So, there are no pop-ups, hover-overs or auto-playing videos.
If you are a local business or organisation, our articles and posts share your story without interruption from pop-up images, videos or click-bait. The people we write about and the town of Ballymena which we continue to champion, is our focus. The stories are our focus. When advertising or sponsorship is necessary or present, we are adamant that it must not get in the way of these stories.
Less people tolerate the delays of ads and pop-ups and simply leave your site. If your gauge is stats, numbers and percentages then maybe you can justify the short visits but, we want something more.
We want to connect with our readers. That’s real people engaging with the entry point of an article here, and then engaging with other real people in our town. We need to hold your attention to achieve this.
Therefore, no pop-up ads!
Get in touch with us if you are a local business or organisation in or around the Ballymena Borough. We would love to meet you and share your story here. Ballymena Today writes for FREE and is maintained by a small team of people who are passionate about their hometown.