I have noticed, in recent times, a greater and greater number of blogs have succumbed to the penchant for Advertising. Some, such as The Back 40k, have stubbornly resisted this trend, and I would kind of like to stand firm with them in that camp...but the reality is, that's got a much larger and broader range of authors to make the blog more of a pastime than a serious endeavour.
While even a cursory examination of my posting trends shows that I hardly consider this a professional outfit, I am in a worse-paid job than most other Bloggers that have told me their day job. :p
As a result, the idea of Ads to garner some green (albeit, probably not enough to be worth their inclusion, I'm hardly a traffic behemoth like 3++, BoLS or YTTH) is not entirely unpalatable, especially if it allows me to buy moar toi soljers, or to fund a future trip to NoVa.
At the end of the day, though, it's up to you guys.
I spend most of my time on my blog 'backstage', not reading the front-page articles I've typically written, or at least read once already.
If Ads would negatively impact your MWFTW experience, or if you think that I should take a stand against Western Capitalism impacting on every single facet of our lives so comprehensively, then please, let me know.
Similarly, if you wouldn't mind, or indeed would like to see me have more chance of a future trip Stateside to hang with e-friends I'd love to meet, speak up.
Plus, of course, it might encourage more articles from me - for better or worse! ;-)
7 comments:
I average about 1000 'views' per day according to google analytics and this makes me about 2-3p a day lol. To make any real money at it you need people to actually click on the ads which is an uncertain prospect at best.
For what it's worth 122 clicks on adverts have over the last 6 months (including the pennies I mentioned earlier) made me a grand total of £47.
I'm guessing that your site gets substantially more hits than that so it might work out more profitable for you. Nobodies ever complained about them though so I shouldn't think it will bother people that much.
Hmm, I think you underestimate the power iHoP has had. Lol.
I certainly do not generate even as many hits as that. In fact, half of that would be quite an exceptional day. :(
That said, I don't blame anyone but myself for my erratic posting making people able, most of my blogging 'career', to visit once a week and catch up inside half an hour.
Still, if I can generate more clicks, I can make up the deficit - and I can always troll to generate a lot of hits very quickly, that's easy. Haha
If done well then ads are fine. By done well I mean not 100 of them thrown in your face. They can be incorporated into a site's design pretty well these days.
I too have tried the ads route a few times now and have never had any real success at it. I think Google owes me a big $11 from months and months of trying it out. Far from an amazing return.
The problem is something like Google Ads aren't very targeted, despite their claims. Let's face it, all us bloggers are a niche and the traffic we get aren't people stumbling across us, IE: the type to likely click on ads. Instead we get loyal readers and followers, the type to ignore ads. Unless you're the behemoth that BoLS is and can get people to pay you to advertise on your site then you'll probably be very disappointed in the returns.
Its your blog put ads on it if you want. I wont stop coming here because of it, but I wont click on the ads either. ;)
I have a couple ads on my blog. I have also tried several different ways to go about these ads, and in general they do not make much.
I don't think a couple ads on the site matter really. I dislike seeing pop up ads that block ya readers view, but anything else really doesnt make any difference for readers in my opinion.
I also tend to check out ads on the rare occasion for blogs that I read all the time, if one catches my interest.
In the end, if they help support your hobby, and someday might make it self supporting, I say go for it.
I don't mind TBH as long as its not overdone. It's not like I click on them anyway.
Go for it. IF it helps us get more content (a finished codex :) ) please go right ahead.
But adds that nerd types would be interested in would help :)
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