Biggest Mistake You Can Make When Monetizing Your Blog

Have you heard about Advertising on Blogs?

Of course, you must have!

Here is what happens when a new blogger learns about AdSense and other Ad Networks. You may also have made the same mistake at some point or may be already doing it!

Average Joe gets excited by the idea of earning money from a free blog and starts blogging. Once he figures out how to put Ads on the blog, he hunts for Ad Networks. Then after signing up nearly every network he finds,  he thinks:

More Ads = More Money

And then starts a blog designer's nightmare. Newbie goes adding ads everywhere on blog and the result is.......... This time I decided not to write too much and let Pictures speak. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words! Isn't it?

What does this type of sidebar say? Of course, "This Blogger is Hungry for Money, Stay Away!"  Visitors  will either navigate away or have to buy a new Plasma Screen to avoid scrolling!

Jokes aside, do long sidebar and more ads help you? The answer is No. Here are the disadvantages of placing too many ads on your blog.

1. Visitors are Annoyed. Cluttered ads on your page can lead to annoyed visitors. And annoyed visitors seldom return to your blog.
2. You Earn Less. "AdSense places the highest paying ads on the highest ad within your HTML source file. This means that the more ads you place the more low paying ads there will be, which will take away clicks from the other higher paying ones. So be sure not to place too many." From Impnerd.com This is why many people get $0.01 clicks. Even if you are using other networks, you may get less clicks due to many "distractions" on your page.
3. You Never Get Paid. Many Ad Networks place a limit on how many ads you can place on your site. Google AdSense lets you place 3 Content ads, 3 Link Units and 2 Search Ads. So, what do the newbies do? They place all AdSense ads they can and then go hunting for other networks! Even if you get a lot of clicks, they may be scattered. For example, Network A may get 3 clicks, Network B may get 2 clicks and Network C gets 3 clicks, then you will have money lying in all these accounts. Reaching the payout for each network will be very difficult.
4. Increased Page Load Times. Since ads are called from different servers, it takes time for all of them to get loaded. Don't look at our sidebar ads like this, I upload them on a Server and they are called from there.

What can be the solution?
Simple, place ads at places which are most noticeable, place less ads, do not use more than 2 ad networks at the same time.

If you are blogging for specific niche, you can try Direct Advertising, where you set your own rate. Also  with direct advertising you can use any type of ad and not have to sign-up with a network.  A word of Caution: It will take a lot of time to find individual sponsors for a new blog!

How many ad blocks do you have in your blog?

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