Ad Placement That Makes Money AND Doesn’t Upset Your Regulars
I think I have hit a happy middle ground with Adsense advertising on Jamdo, with the placement of the advertising blocks.
There has always been an ongoing debate in the blogosphere regarding Adsense advertising on blogs.
A lot of people shun any money making from blogs at all. They think that the readers should be placed first and should not be subjected to any advertising whatesover.
Some are a little more reasoned that the ad placement should not be prominent so as to not upset the regular readers. The problem with that of course is that putting Adsense advertising in less prominent positions like the bottom of the right hand column means that it is much less likely to be clicked on.
Yet other bloggers think it is the right of any author to make money from their blog and put advertising wherever they please, including annoying popups etc.
I like to think I have found a happy alternative on this blog.
If you are a regular reader of a blog, then the most likely entry page that you will come in on is the main index. As a blogger then, you may want to tone down the advertising placement for the main page - especially having a big block of adsense smack bang in the middle of the page.
However, a lot of people from search engines enter sites via one of the other pages. These people are generally not the core of your loyal readership. In my opinion then, I really have no problems placing fairly prominent advertising in their face - like an adsense block straight under the title of the post, which is what I am currently doing on this blog.
Now there are a few problems with this.
If you only offer a snippet of the story on your front page, then your regular readers have to click through also in which case they will also be subject to the prominent advertising.
On the other hand if you offer the full story on your front page for your regular readers, you may get duplicate content issues with the search engines as the same content appears on several pages of your blog (ie. the index page and the post page). This is just something I have decided to cop sweet.
Now, I don’t think there is really any right or wrong answer for how Adsense should be used on blogs - it is obviously up to the author.
But I like to think that here at Jamdo, I have reached an acceptable compromise.
Adsense Resources:
Images and Adsense - From the Horse’s Mouth
Positioning Your Adsense Ads - From ProBlogger
Best Adsense Placement for Highest CTR - Adsense Master Plan
Technorati Tags: adsense, google, advertising, blogging
Good points, this is a difficult subject, though. Some may argue that your regulars will grow accustomed to the ads and even give them a few clicks for you, out of pure kindness.
I took mine down a couple of months back- I think they look horrible and, if you use google, it’s hard to make any REAL money off of an average of 60 cents per click…just my experience/2 cents.
Again, very controversial subject, not sure if there is a right/wrong but, bottom line, it’s the authors blog, I think the decision rests on his/her own judgement.
Nice site, just found you through MBL, headed to check out your photos, I work for Wallhogs and am all about photography
June 10th, 2007 at 1:53 amThanks for stopping by Scott.
Yeah, I certainly agree that this is a difficult subject. I also ran with no ads on Jamdo for quite a while.
To be honest, I just don’t think there is a simple answer that can be applied accross the whole spectrum of blogging.
June 10th, 2007 at 2:22 amYou’re exactly right, Rob, kind of like the pay per post type services, everybody has their own opinion. Whether you are following the herd or you’re doing your own thing, just as long as it makes you happy (and maybe even some $$), it should be right/most correct.
Also, just got your comment on ScottPot, thanks, great suggestion, too!!
Take care, Rob, glad to have come across your site.
June 10th, 2007 at 2:43 am