Daniel wears Glo-Weave shirts. He shops at Safeway. He loves Weetbix for breakfast, and always includes Leggo tomato paste in his spag bol.
A while back I decided to play around with Google ads on a few pages: Here, here and on Geekrant.org.
To my utter surprise, it’s now earning US$5-9 per month. Which is hardly anything, of course. But it is almost enough to pay the hosting fees on some of those sites, which is slowly adding up to more and more money as traffic grows.
The content on toxiccustard.com needs a revamp anyway. The Guide to Australia pages still get a lot of interest, and would be very Google Adsense-friendly. I’m thinking a nice WordPress installation, allowing comments, ads on each page, and an update every so often would do it and my wallet the world of good.
As for this site… How would I feel with ads plastered all over tastefully adorning the margins of my blog? Maybe just on the archive pages, which people coming in via Google seem to hit the most, but leaving the main page, which real readers see more often, ad-free.
11 replies on “Should Daniel sell-out?”
Hmm, hard to say…. I like your site *because* it is ad-free. I’ve seen your Guide to Australia pages and they are great. Yeah, I think your thinking is about right. Whatever you do, don’t go with those horrible flashing ads? Aren’t they a curse to mankind (and womankind too ;) ) LOL. Have a good week.
Fair comment. Well, if you look at the example pages linked above, the Google ads tend to be fairly unobtrusive, which is why I like them.
Garn. Go for it. If you find them too annoying, you can always take them off. Trial it.
I have no objection to google adds as long as they are reasonably unobtrusive which they are on most web sites.
As an aside, I reckon google adds usually do good job of relating to the topic on the website. But a considerable number of the web businesses they link to are highly dodgey which has gone a long way to making sure I rarely click on a link.
Go for it!
I really don’t understand why readers get offended by bloggers putting Google ads on thier sites.
My arguments:
Because google ads are (in theory) relevant to the blog, they occaisionally direct me to soemthing useful that I may not have discovered easily.
Otherwise they are very easily ignored and do not interfere with my enjoyment of the site.
The blogs I read aprovide entertainment, amusement and information. Why on earth shouldn’t the writer make a passive income from, let alone just cover their costs of hosting the site/s?
If the readers don’t like the ads – then DON’T READ THEM. (How much does it hurt/cost anyway to read them? -NOTHING)
So again,
Go for it!
Blogspot melts Google Ads with your journal pretty well… it doesn’t distracts you… you could do something like that.
And PLEASEEEE update your Guide to Australia. I can’t send a question…:(
Those of us using Firefox with the AdBlock/Filterset.G extension don’t see Google Ads anyway 8-)
It always comes as a surprise when I’m forced to use IE and visit my regular pages to find them littered with adverts.
If it makes a few quid for you, I say go for it.
Go for it, I enjoy your blog, it’s the only one I actually read on a regular basis and if you can offset some costs with ads just do it!
I’d definitely recommend checking out Joel Comm’s AdSense Secrets.
More traffic will definitely help raise revenues, but he gives some very good time about ad styles and ad placement that will help you increase revenue on the same amount of traffic. You could probably double or triple your Google revenue.
The book’s a bit expensive, but we’ll worth it, not only in my opinion, but my experience.
– Greg
Yeah, go on then.
If you had asked me if you ran a completely ad-free site I would have said Yes. It’s only now you’ve pointed them out that I realise I have seen those pages with ads before.
That tells me they aren’t intrusive at all.
And as Rae says – if you dont like it you can stop
cheers
shell
I have no problem with them, didnt even notice them, to be honest!!