Biggest Mistake You Can Make When Monetizing Your Blog
Post Written on December 22, 2008 by Mr. IHave 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.
- Visitors are Annoyed. Cluttered ads on your page can lead to annoyed visitors. And annoyed visitors seldom return to your blog.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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I just blogged on a similar topic and beginners going crazy adding tons and tons of widgets just because they are free. (Link directs to the post.)
Sometimes you don’t have to be even a beginner to do this, there is a very popular pen pal site that has been online for 10 years and after the redesign the page was loaded with adverts of all kinds. Needless to say I stopped using the site.
@ Sebastyne
Your post is nice. Helping other bloggers is appreciable.
Yes, sometimes sites just annoy by adding too much ads. I joined a social network some time ago which paid users to make friends. They had 4-5 ad blocks on a single page. Just yesterday when I returned to the site, they also had Pop-Ups! And I hate them the most. now even if they pay me daily, I won’t visit it!
@ Joshua
You have a nice blog but why are you so shy on Widgets? Go on, add some necessary ones like Popular Posts. Here is a post I made about necessary widgets: Widget Checklist for Bloggers
Lol your example picture is funny. I know how irritating it is to see ads all over the page and you’re right about not being able to hit the threshold.. Lotsa new bloggers should learn about this!
@ Ben Pei
Actually I should say thanks to Blog owner(Unfortunately, I can not make name public). I came across the blog and when I saw so much ads, I decided to write a post about this.
Great Post bro…!!!
Thanks
Great post! I hate seeing those blogs that go overkill on ads…
lol, adblock plus take care the ads for you, tom. Why don’t you use it?
When it comes right down to it having a well designed blog is important. Every blogger carrying advertising on their blog ought to read this post. Many bloggers desirous of making an income overnight from blogging not only cover their blogs with too much advertising which distracts one from finding their content, but they also clutter their sidebars with widgets that serve no useful purpose to their readers.
Unless and until a blogger, who can actually write and has something original to say has built an archives of high quality content, on an optimized blog, and has an average of 1,000 – 1,500 hits every day – monetizing is premature. In fact, those who immediately start a blog and cover it with advertising are more likely to send readers clicking out than they are to secure them as subscribers.
It’s a shame so many lame brains have fallen for the notion that they can make a killing from blogging, and so many have become click fraud groupies, because their behaviors have devalued the value of every advertising click and because most will never make a significant income from it.
Hi folks, sitting in for Mr. I who’s unavailable just now.
@Rizky – Thank you for stopping by (haven’t seen you this year!)
@Tom – StandOutBlogger.com – As Fransiska said there are ways to confine ads to a predefined space. However your ads seem pretty much under control already.
@timethief – Well, you said it all. Anyone reading this knows who they are… lol Let’s hope they find this post.
This post is bang on, between the ads and widgets some bloggers show more in their sidebar than in their actual post.
It’s almost as annoying as the full page ads that fade in over the page.
@Geoserv – Agree. Just don’t get me started on those page ads! Horrible. There is on on Blog Catalog that is soooo annoying. It’s animated (normally would be cute) and it has the nerve to take forever to load.
I don’t mind a site with a lot of ads, so long as they are designed and distributed in such a way that the site doesn’t look cluttered. I like a decent bit of space devoted to the content, and so long as the ads don’t overshadow the content, I think just about any ad layout can work.
I too don’t mind. John Chow uses 8 ad network’s ads on his blog. Its structuring that makes his blog look clean.
True, especially regarding ads I believe the structuring and formatting is very important. If the blog looks cluttered with ads, the visitors flee before you can say “doh!”