Some people has told me that my blog is getting too monetized, that there are too many ads on it, that it’s becoming too commercial. I have only one thing to say to that.
If You’re Going To Monetize Your Blog, Then Really Monetize It!
Monetization of a blog is way more than slapping on a couple of Google ads. That is just the beginning. Your job is to find as many ways possible to extract maximum dollars out of it, while still providing a good user experience. There will always be people who will complain about ads on a blog – even if it’s only one ad. Here’s something to keep in mind, those who complain the loudest about advertising on a blog are the same people who will never click an ad, or worst, use an ad blocker. Since you don’t make any money off them, how important is their rant about too much advertising?
How do you know when cross reach the tipping point? The answer is simple. Your traffic will tell you – if it starts going down, you need to make changes. However, the chance of it going down because of too much advertising is quite slim. Asked 100 readers what the biggest reason for leaving a blog is and too much advertising wouldn’t be at the top of the list. I think it’ll be tied with disrespecting a lobster.
Take a look at one of the biggest blogs on the net, Engadget. There are 21 ads on the front page. Do readers complain? I’m sure some do. Does Engadget care? I highly doubt it. If you’re going to monetize your blog, then really monetize it.
The Key To Ad Placement
The key to placing advertising on a site is to use many different advertising sources and to space them out so they’re not too crowded. If Engadget were to put all 21 ads above the fold, there would howls of protests. A good rule of thumb to follow is an ad should be visible with every scroll of an 800×600 page. It is possible to place a ton of ads on a page and still have it look clean (I’m not saying Engadget is clean).
Another key is to use many different types of ads. 21 banners on a page would look ridiculous but if you mix it up with banners, text links, buttons, affiliate stuff, etc., you can still maintain a fairly clean and readable page.
Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, sometime it is worth it to remove advertising from a page. I do not run an inline Google ad on my AGLOCO updates because the goal is to sign up affiliates and not have them leave the site by clicking on a Google ad. This is one mistake I feel many AGLOCO members are making with their landing pages. Why do you have Google ads on it?
Don’t Bother With The Whiners
The majority of your readership won’t care that you have advertising on your blog. Don’t pay too much attention to the whiners. While they maybe vocal, they’re not going to make or break you. I admit I had too many ReviewMe reviews at the end of the month because of that 50% sale, but other than that, I feel the level of advertising on this blog is about right.
One last thing. For those who said some of my ReviewMe reviews were not on topic, this is the Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul. This is not ProBlogger. Everything I write about is on topic! 
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I agree with you john , you have to make the most of your blog, My blog is still brand new but I’m planning to monetize it soon. Good work.
I agree with the both of you!.. I just started my site, but I am trying to put some ads on it.. I don’t think its too much to start.
Yeah, I’m going easy on the adds to start. I figure once you have regulars, then they are more likely to stick around when more adds start popping up.
I’m on the side that says that you should claim your ad spots now so that your readers no right from the get-go that you’re planning to monetize the site. It saves yourself from having to explain it in the future.
Hey Gary.. well that’s what i tried to do with my site.. very few ads to start with.. but once the site starts to grow then maybe put a bit more.
I think I’d agree with Gary. If I were to compare this with dating, you would want your date (your readers) to know your true self from the get go, instead of surprising them with your little habits and annoyances (ads) later on and ruining the relationship (losing subscribers).
Good point Gary, get your ads on there as soon as possible! Your true fans wont care if you are trying to make some money – especially if you have great content!
Same here, I am always confused when you hear people stating that your have to wait until you site is “matured” to place ads. All you are really doing to limiting a revenue stream.
Personally, just as long as the content it good, I really don’t care if a site is monetized.
Well…I guess my view was wrong then, I’ll look into fully monetizing my blog as soon as I can.
I have to admit, I did find all of the ads on JohnChow to be a bit annoying, but I keep coming back, so I guess it doesn’t matter!
Thank you,
Wesley…
http://DVDRentalForums.com
Ads are a “must” in every site. Without them, the site will not survive. If the content is good, ads are the less of worries to a reader.
I dont know about this, I ran adds from the off, adds dont bother me at all as long as theres something of interest to read Im happy.
If you dont run adds, you run at a loss, most blogs just want to cover their hosting and get a bit of pocket money, big earning sites like Johns are rare.
Good point of view Jez, has allways.
I can’t say anything more to that
I think you are less likely to get banned from Google Adsense by putting ads on sites with at least 500 visitors each day. If you only have 10 visitors and one day someone clicks on 5 ads, it will look suspicious.
We’ve had our domain for a month and a half and just now started to monotize it. We wanted to build credibility before really trying to find creative ways to monitize
You are right, John.
I do not care about your ads, except – to some extent – for the ReviewMe Reviews.
If I remember correctly, Steve Pavlina shares your opinion.
There were are lot of ReviewMe posts, but there was no decline in regular content!
I don’t think everyone agrees on that statement
I liked John Chow’s articles more a couple of months ago, the latest articles didn’t really tell me much new. However, I guess I’m psrt of the semi-silent whiners, I’m not complaining :p
I didn’t say anything about quality of said content.
No, I’m with you.
I feel that, even though the blog has “ramblings” in the title (so does mine) there were so many reviewmes stuck in there (some not written by John) that the site became about the reviews and not about John.
I have no problem with the amount of advertising content on the blog, I don’t think any of your readers have a problem with the advertising.
What some of us had a problem with was your out-sourcing of writing posts.
Unless you want to change the title to:
“The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul and a few of his friends”
please stick to writing the articles.
I think the 50% off sale may have hurt him a little. He didn’t want to turn anything down (as far as I know), so he took everything. That was a lot of reviews all at once.
The thing is it probably hurt the advertisers to be so bunched together with other reviews.
I think John is in the process of finding a balance, since he finally felt a backlash of readers disapprval
That or he made it through all of the ReviewMe’s!
Yeah I think he had a load of them due to the 50% offer, with those out of the way I would expect it to settle down again, have to wait and see…
What about adding a 3 minute comment spamming plugin? That way readers have to wait three minutes in between posting comments?
No, I don’t think he has. This post is proof. The only thing limiting the number of ReviewMe ads on this blog are the number of requests coming in. I would be absolutely shocked to hear that John turned down a ReviewMe ad due to this fictional backlash.
Of course he wouldnt turn it down, and I agree, the ‘backlash’ is fictional.
I think a number of readers got a bit weary of all the reviewMe’s but were still all here, you cant read a blog, in part dedicated to making money online and then expect the author to turn money down.
One of the most interesting aspects of this blog is to see how John manages to ramp up the revenue it generates, I think thats what the majority of readers are interested in…
While there were a lot of ReviewMe reviews this past little while, John still kept up with his usual number of posts… it’s just the ReviewMe reviews were stuck in between.
i don’t think he’s tryin to do much balance. He’s doing what works and it’s bringing him a profit. I doubt any of us would boycott him because he or anyone else does reviews.
The money making strategies that John blogs about are to valuable to pass up. It’s worth sifting through stuff to find.
Look, whatever Samans paying you to write these comments, Ill double it.
I can believe while Im off reviewing your site your in here bumping me off the no 2 spot
I need some hired help
LOL…now now, there is plenty of room for that number one spot. You just have to be up 24/7 commenting up a storm
I think it did get a bit much at one point, some of them were quite interesting though. Ive only had one reviewMe request and there is a conflict between writing what you want, and writing what you are paid to.
I think if your offered them, they are quite hard to refuse.
In the end I just thought WTF, Ill do it and spend the money on adwords or something…
John probably thought, WTF, Ill do it and pay my mortgage off!!
hahah…well, I’m not sure that the 250 he gets from these will pay off the mortgage, but def nice supplement to his income.
$7000 in a single month from a personal blog will go a long ways toward a mortgage.
I don’t complain about your ads because I have an ad block. But you’re probably right, those that complain aren’t clicking on the ads.
I had you white listed for awhile to learn from you, but your site loads so damn slow with the ads that I put you back on.
yup! same here, I am here for the content not to see the ads, but you have a point John, if anyone leaves you it will be due to disrepecting the lobster for sure!
but the site loads slow as Brain said. I do click some of the ads if I find them interesting or if I think the blogger deserves it. . .YOU really do! it has been a few months since you started monetizing it, there is nothing wrong in it…
Feedback: Reduce the no. of ReviewMe posts. ..I really hate, i know there is big money, but honestly I hate it!, now I am not whining, just that those ReviewMe posts are too much these days . . if you doubt that, just see the no. of posts you have done till date. .
I thought it was the extensive list of comments that slowed the site
Well said
I concur with you. Either one decides to go all the way in doing something (monetizing in this case), or is better off doing something else. You have to commit a hundred percent effort if you are going to reap what you sow. Besides, the only person who has the authority to say what his blog says is still the author.
Advertising is one area I really need to focus on – I have a few, but they aren’t really performing yet. I have applied for some others but haven’t been accepted yet…
What have you applied for??
A lot wont accept you until you have a lot of traffic, which is what I assume you are waiting for??
Yep! I’m getting the traffic and have reapplied to some advertisers…..
We’ll see!
Your traffic is increasing though, right? Do you find that it has increased with your technorati rank increase?
Saman, here’s a hint. Spend 1/5 of the time you do commenting on Johns post. You’ll have lots more time to focus on your advertising and it will still keep you in the top 10.
diversifing is the name of the game!
Nice tip about the ads on a landing page. Now that you mention it, I too have to wonder why people have ads on posts that talk about AGLOCO… it just lets their target wander off to sign up with someone else!
This is very true.
The Paid Reviews are great! $$$. Don’t stop doing them. However… It would also be great if the “Paid Review posts said “Review” somewhere in the title versus some sort of “Title Bait” designed to get people on the page who wouldn’t normally want to be there.
Isn’t the point of doing a review to have people view them? Making them easy to avoid would defeat the purpose!
There’s a fine line between title bait and flat out deceiving your readers. I think it’s very important to have a catchy title so that people will want to visit your post, but I don’t think it’s necessary to put “Review” in there to turn them off from it. So long as it’s disclosed in the first paragraph or two, I don’t think it’s a problem to not have “Review” in the title. If they lose interest by the second paragraph, they’re not going to read the whole thing anyways.
Review me stipulate that you do declare it as a review and suggest putting “sponsored post” or similar into the review.
I think this is likely to be a legal requirement.
I think it is a legal requirement in the UK, in newspapers you sometimes read things that are written like articles, but have “advertisement” in the header, so you are clear what you are reading.
Its to protect the readers US
Opps looks like by bold closing tag failed and sent the whole page bold, try again
You screwed up the whole page!
Here’s hoping that fixed it…
Well that’s an interesting bug… It won’t let anyone put in an unmatched close tag to patch it up because unmatched tags would create this problem. But it allowed a malformed b tag and didn’t match it because it didn’t recognize it… Interesting.
I fixed it.
John Chow to the rescue
Thanks a lot John.
How embarrasing
“It is to protect US readers”
… because they are too dumb to recognize a paid post… is that what you are saying.
Well written John. I can assure I’ll take this advice when my blog is generating some reasonable traffic.
Thanks for the monetizing encouragement. I’ve read advice on both sides of the debate. Your advice seems the most reasonable.
I actually didnt mind the excess of the reviewme stuff, i found a few sites I liked, subsribed to, and registered with
I’ll second that. People seem to have a blanket hate on for sponsored posts, but when they’re done by a sensible blogger, there’s useful information in there.
I like them… However… I would prefer to know that it’s a sponsored post before i spend my time to click over and read an entire paragraph before the disclosure.
Sometimes I want to read a review. But… In most of the cases lately, I assumed the post was something that it was not and left the site feeling tricked.
Well I agree that readers shouldn’t feel “tricked”. That’s bad for everyone. I do my best to make sure that readers are well aware that any sponsored posts on my website are indeed sponsored.
I find John does a pretty reasonable job though. It might not always be perfect, but I can say that I rarely feel tricked into reading John’s reviews.
Good point. I limited myself to just Adsense for the first 3 months of my blog. I was worried about adding Kontera. As soon as I did, the Adsense revenue stayed exactly the same and I started earning more on Kontera than I did with Adsense in the first place. I am adding another source here this week and am interested to see how it works.
Great tips John. Basically make it look nice and it won’t be a big deal.
I tried TextLink but haven’t been accepted yet, I just applied to Kontera, thanks Neil!
I’m not getting accepted for TLA either. I’m in the same boat as you where I’m putting up ads, but they aren’t getting me that much. I’m not that concerned as I’m concentrating more on posting quality content.
True, I’m concentrating on content as well – although, I’m spending more time commenting on all of these sites to write!
Whats the entry requirement for text links??
They wouldn’t tell me. My site was refused and they said apply again in three months. Three months passed and I was refused again. They said that I had to have more incoming links and higher quality incoming links.
Considering my Technorati ranking is under 7000 and I have incomings from Problogger and Shoemoney I took this a bit of BS. I told them this and asked for more details about what constitutes quality under their system and they haven’t responded.
Considering they recommend the 3 months wait, I think the answer is simple:
PageRank
I would have thought TLA had an independant review system.
Kumiko
xo
Yeah, I think it’s all about PageRank too – I have a PR3 site and was declined.
They only accept PR4+ – they claim that there is more to the application process but if you have PR4+ then you will always get into TLA.
Its not just PR, I have a site with PR4 that was turned down, I think they must be using other metrics like Alexa also
They have thrown me a bone with the auction adds but I dont write about products, yet
My blog (btr.michaelkwan.com) is PR4 and I got rejected by TLA.
I have had no problems getting PR 4 pages accepted into TLA.
I don’t know that there is a way to make it work with Blogger is there?
This is so true, I can’t believe I didn’t blog about this! haha. On my forums, there was a small vocal opposition to Google Ads when they were introduced. Several weeks later, they accepted it and life went on. Most recently, intelliTXT was introduced and again about 8-10 people complained loudly and threatened to never visit the forums again.
While we all try to listen to our users for feedback, you must think before acting on user feedback. With over 40,000 members 8-10 complainers is not significant enough to warrant any changes.
If theres good content, the readership will be there–even if your site is loaded with ads.
I don’t like ads that work similiar to intelitext because they throw up little pop-ballons just because the mouse got too close to them!
GGRRR!!!!!
Great tips John, I’ve always been afraid of complainers but you’re right, what should I care what a handful of elitists think!
John, I love the ads at the bottom of your posting but you never answered my question, where did you get those ads.
I don’t think it’s from AdSense. I tried AuctionAds and placed two of them at the bottom but they don’t look pretty. Please John, unless it’s designed only for your site.
Thanks.
Those are from my own Ad Network. http://www.TTZMedia.com
Yeah they are pretty cool, much better than aff adds ive used
Thanks, John. It was great, I love those ads.
Any chance of branching that adv engine into something other than tech stuff?
He lists all of his advertisers in his monthly income posts, you’ll be able to find most, if not all, ads he’s using
I really enjoyed this post John. You have a lot of power in the blogspere, and what you say influences a lot of blogs.
You know I had the same issue with my community. They stated that my site was solely being used for making money off of traffic. I mean, yeah I want to do well for the community by giving my input into what’s happening but I do want to atleast cover my web hosting costs and sometimes the time I spend on it. Nothing wrong with putting up some ads. Heck some of the complainers them self had ads on their site, so that was hypocritical
Of course ad placement is important and I have been playing around with that…
Your right John, sometimes its best to not listen to whiners and let the traffic be your guide.
I’ve taken my share of flak too. But John’s 100% right. The complainers are certainly vocal, but they’re a small minority.
I do have a comment on the review me posts, not really specific to this site, since they seem to have a good theme. There seems to be a rash of sites that have little to no content except review posts, these posts also seem to have to noticeable theme to them. That is the advertising the annoys me.
You would think that there are less expensive ways for advertisers to get in-content backlinks…
Nope, shop around.
Well said, I have no problem with the current level of advertising on this blog.
I’m surprised that this post hasn’t received more backlash, considering how vocal the anti-ad people usually are. I think it’s fine to monetize the heck out of your blog so long as it doesn’t detract too much from the user experience. Engadget, for example, is terrible because the ads make the page load way too slowly on many browsers, taking up more space than the actual content itself.
I always think it’s a delicate act to monetize with class. As a designer, I try to keep my ad placements subtle and context-sensitive…but then again, there’s a reason why I’ve only made a dollar so far in March.
But really, who CLICKS on ads? That’s the bit that confuses me. Anybody who’s been around the web for longer than a year knows how to spot an ad when they see one. Does advertising prey only on the uninitiated and the gullible? Are the ad-clickers just fellow bloggers doing fellow bloggers some favours? Or are they people genuinely interested in switching to Telus by following an ad they saw on a website?
But anyway, you’re totally right: if you’re gonna do it, dammit, do it all the way. I’m still so timid! I don’t want to ruin the “User Experience!” John, you’re an inspiration to us all.
Or at least a source of painful, stomach-cramping, groan-inducing jealousy. You bitch.
People who want to buy things click on ads. It’s the same as TV. Many of us don’t pay attention to commercials, but those of us who are out there buying stuff tend to tune in a bit more and act on some of the products that satisfy a need that we have.
I’ve always wondered that too. I have never clicked on an Adsense ad, nor have I ever followed any banner ads…. that’s not to say that I don’t want visitors to my blog to not click too :p
I have, but I usually only do that when I’m out and about looking for commercial products. I’m also a part time student and when I’m on the web for school, I pretty much never click on an ad. It all boils down to who has the information I need.
Using Adsense as an example, when I’m looking for academic info, there’s pretty much no company that has what I want. When looking for parts for a guitar though, the commercial entities who can afford to advertise for those particular keywords I’m interested in quite likely have what I want.
I agree. I’ll further add that if I use Google to look for something and the site I go to does not have exactly what I want but the ads are in line with my search I will leave via them. Unless the site is obviously MFA!
One more thing: SELLING OUT is so, like, 1992. Anti-establishment attitudes are on their way out, and that’s what lets you (John) and the rest of the ad-juiced web communities become so succesful. I mean, take Starbucks: once villainized for being corporate bastards, they’re practically the government now, with scholarships, community grants and great benefits. Rallies and protests about fair trade or monopolization are pretty much boring old news, as “the little guy” learns to embrace “the Man.” We’re so much more advertising-friendly in 2007. Whether it’s desensitization or just the familiar, Febreze-scented Winds of Change, John’s right: take advantage of it.
Monetizing my sites better is something I’ve been working on lately. It’s been easy for me to fall into the trap of working more on content than on earning money from that content.
Monetization can be hard work. AdSense and other automated systems make it pretty easy to earn some, but figuring out what will earn best can be pretty tough.
Your blog. Do whatever what you want to do.
I would never turn down writing a review that paid me $125 because some of my readers wouldn’t like it.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Kumiko
xo
Great point Kumiko!.. its the same argument with people arguing about whats appropriate for radio/television.. if you don’t like it don’t tune in.
Eternal wisdom stretched out to the blogosphere. Well said Kumiko.
“If you don’t like it, don’t read it.”
I agree… However… It’s better if a sponsored review is disclosed in the title so I can make that choice before I visit the blog versus after I get halfway done reading it.
Good on you John, there’s the ol’ Chow attitude. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or in your case, if you can stand the heat, your going to die in the middle of the dinner table while people watch.
Haha. Nice comment.
Let’s not forget that John will be poking you with a chopstick too.
I kind of agree. Your readers are what make or break your blog, and for every one that speaks out, another 10 have already left.
I have absolutely no problem monetizing a blog, and you deserve every cent – you’ve had some incredible posts. Last months reviews were a bit much but you have no problem admitting that so I don’t see anything wrong with it.
Another option is to get into content publishing, John. If you setup a paid members area where people could talk one on one with you about how to build and monetize their blog for $19.95 a month or something I know that’d work. Or, there’s always the eBook/home study course route. They do take quite a while to put together though.
Overall the ad’s don’t phase me. I’m an Internet marketer “by day” and I still click on AdSense ads – why not – you read the content and if the ads are of interest then there’s no point in not clicking them just because you’ll give John 5 cents from the click
“Your readers are what make or break your blog”
Well that completely depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to have lots of readers, you’re right. If you’re goal is to have a financially successful blog, then that’s not a pre-requisite.
“for every one that speaks out, another 10 have already left”
I challenge you to come up with any statistics that would back up that claim. In my experience, this is simply not true when it comes to blogs. It may apply to other situations, but not to blogs.
I read JC for almost 6 month now, i still like it but the amount of valuable tips going down. I guess now I read it not to learn anything new but to see what’s up with Mr.Evil. That’s how I see it
Very good points, people need to realize that you are writing the content for free if there would be no advertising in place. If they aren’t willing to pay for the content, then they should be more than willing to support it by supporting your advertising.
Your ads look great great John. Yeah, how are bloggers supposed to pay for servers and the page views if there’s no ads?
Donations? Yeah, that’d work for Wikipedia-like sites, but probably not for blogging in general…
I seldom see an opposing view that I hold … wonder if I am totally out in left field? Ads seem to be regarded as either wicked evil by a vocal minority or a necessary evil by many others. But what if ads were looked at as a beneficial resource?
I run, for example, a tiny techno-geek blog on a very narrow subject (GPS). It draws Google Ads that amaze me as well as my readers. Companies all over the world coming up with products I never heard of … some great, some stupid … all of them “blog fodder” and all of them of interest to my narrow “geek” audience.
I learn a _lot_ from blogging business oriented blogs like John’s, from the ads as well as from the editorial content … personally I love them. I don’t have to read them or click on them, just like I don’t read every post on every blog I surf.
“If You’re Going To Monetize Your Blog, Then Really Monetize It!”
And If You’re Not Going to Really Monetize Your Blog, Don’t Monetize it at All
Being self-conscious about advertising passes your insecurity on to your readers – they won’t like your ads and you won’t like their performance.
There was a good article on the subject at Adsense’s blog a while back. The site in question went from $10 to $1700 a day. At that point, I’m sure any ad-whining bounced right off them.
Going from $10 to $1700 a day must have sent off some alarm bells over at Google!
It took me many hours to complete an interview with an expert (quality tips) but the result that i got from one of the reader was fed up with adsense ads. Well, i have to ignored him alone and continue to provide good stuff for my other readers.
John, I’d love to hear your take on this:
Do you need a readership to have a financially successful blog or just traffic. I ask because I came to that crossroad a while ago where I was at risk of losing some readership in exchange for better monetization. I sort of split the difference (long story).
Most of my traffic is transient. The whole motivation behind slippery pages is moving transient traffic in and out of your web page as quickly as possible. That being said, while a regular readership won’t necessarily convert on its own, it does stimulate conversation and as a result, fodder for more topics.
Your take?
While a readership certainly doesn’t hurt, I think it all comes down to traffic. If you rank high in search engines for whatever your site sells, you will always have customers coming by that are interested in that particular product.
I completely agree, for a product.
My question is specifically related to blogs though where there is no product for sale, and various forms of advertising are the only source of revenue.
It all depends on the nature of your content. To this day I still get more traffic from Google searches than any other source!
The good thing about search traffic is that ,I have found,is it has a good conversion rate.
“It all depends on the nature of your content.”
Does it though? I don’t think it does personally. I know there are components to a readership that can be beneficial, I just wonder if they’re necessary for a blog to be financially viable.
Far out that’s a lot of comments
Good post though John
If JohnChow.com is too monetized – what about mine? I often felt that my blog have too many ads, but I don’t know how to make them looks cleaner. I wish to remove some ads, but I just can’t because they do actually make money.
And if John Chow doesn’t monetized this blog, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy his earnings recap every month.
Vincent, I pop by frequently, and I find that yours are looking fine.
Vincent your site doesn’t look to ad-crowded at all. Very clean.
Right on.
if you have a good ad placement more chances you will convert more sales
Is it just me or is Telus Mobility really pushing Google Ads for all Canadian bloggers?
My site is full of them. I’m thinking of blocking Telus or should I keep it going?
TELUS bought every single adsense ad in Canada for the next 24 hours.
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/340/C12052/
Back to the topic. I think john missed the boat on his post.
I wont leave because there’e too many ads on the page, i’ll leave because the value of this blog is diminshing. Atleast half the content posted is a review of another site i dont care about, or a product test advertisement.
Paid to review is really killing blogging..but thats a whole other discussion!
Yes, paid content can kill the blog if the blogger is focusing on making money more than the blogging.
I run some PPP posts here and there but, I don’t run just any post. The post has to fit with my blog.
Does PPP have a wide range of options or is it tough to find ones that match your theme?
Your sites about making money online.
You make most money from ads on your sites so I reckon people should expect ads and stop moaning.
That’s definitely true. How can John talk about monetizing and advising others on it, if he cannot show a true-life example of himself?
Thanks John,My opinion is actually is up to blogger or webmaster to monetize their blog.What the important is how to put the ads.The most popular tips is make your ads same as you blog or site background.It call ‘blend ‘ the ads together with the content,and is not look like ads.:)But the most important is better we get a traffic.If we can get a lots of traffic,the money from our ads will come to us without stop.So one again,for John Chow is not a problem to reach a lot of visitor.We all know about this because John already built the permanent readers to his blog.
I’ve been commenting for half an hour, why am I not a top commentator yet?
I’ll just blame the advertising…
If you’re going to blame something, that’s a great place to start
I have no problems featuring ads on my site The Rock and Roll Report as long as they don’t distract from the content. I have used Google Adsense for awhile now and it covers all my expenses but as I am currently redesigning the site from the ground up on WordPress, I am paying more attention to ad placement and the look of the ads.
I have always wanted the blog to at least pay for itself. Proper ad placement, if they are of interest to my readers should not be a turn off. Cluttering my site up with ads for something not related in some way to rock and roll will. The art is in finding the balance.
Monetization isn’t bad. It just has to be done properly.
Mark
1000 % correct
It’s your. Not Tom, John and Joe’s
Sound advice. The complainers should get Adblock if ads are so bothersome to them.
One thing that I have noticed…when you start a new site you don’t have that many advertising options. Until you get some traffic it’s just you and adsense.
but hey sometimes, too many ads are irritating…
I say in for a penny then in for a million dollars -why the heck not. Advertisements are everywhere, why not here.
Well the best answer would be to even allow frequent visitors, based on comments, an ad of their own on the blog.
Smart Alec
i think your ads are totally fine. Even the review my stuff wasn’t bad, because were actually some good articles in them
As far as monetizing my blog, I am starting out small, because I don’t really have the traffic, but at the same time I don’t want a NO AD site and later slap on a huge amount of ads. So I am starting gradual. It don’t know if this logic is good, but it seems alright.