Rules For Bloggers #3:
I run into this one all the time. Someone has an obviously new blog, likely has less than three months worth of posts, high Alexa rank, low or no Google Page rank, yet their blog is covered with Adsense ads.
People (at least real people) don’t click on Google Adsense ads very often. Think about it, when was the last time you saw an Adsense ad on a newbie blog that you clicked on? If you’re lucky, you get 2 clicks per 100 visitors, likely far less. And most ads that will show up on a newbie blog will pay less than $0.10. You’ll alienate many of those 100 viewers from ever coming back all for a measly $0.20.
Wait until you get some search engine ranking and decent traffic, then slowly introduce ads. And there are far better and higher paying ads to use on a low traffic blog than Adsense.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Buddy… nice comprehensive site on blog monetization… I’ll be back to get some nice ideas for my blog!!
Happy bloggin’!!
~jjs~
Nice blog, u know Aaron Wall linked to you from twitter? which ads do you recommend by the way?
Ed, I think that Adwords is ok once your blog starts getting some traffic, just not for new blogs or established blogs. Adwords, in my opinion, is good once you are getting over 100 hits a day and then goes bad again once you are over 1000 hits a day. That’s just my general rule of thumb.
The general consensus seems to be that targeted promotion of affiliate products or better yet your own product (which I don’t have yet) are better. You’ll have more control over what ads you have on your site and less fear of losing all your income should you get slapped down by google for a slight infraction.
So for any new site I start up, I do the following:
1) less than 100 daily hits – No Ads. Just worry about providing good content and building backlinks. People are more likely to link to you if your blog or site isn’t plastered with ads.
2) 100-1000 daily hits – Adwords is fine. Gives you a couple quick bucks. Look at the ads being posted to your site by Google and get a feel for what types of products other people are advertising in your space using your keywords, how much they pay, and what the general click through rate is.
3) over 1000 daily hits – Phase out Adwords in favor of affiliate or commissioned products based on what other people were advertising.
4) over 10000 daily hits – Write/Create your own product.
I’ll let you know how #4 works out when I get there.