I am thinking whether putting text-based ads on the weblog would be a bad idea. So here’s a poll for all of you to vote on it.
UPDATE: I have put Google Ads up temporarily. We’ll see how it goes in terms of popularity or otherwise among readers and revenue. The poll is currently 10-9 in favor of putting up ads.
The placement of ads on the main page is quite unobstructive in my opinion. The individual post pages, however, have the ads just after the post and before the comments. Let me know if you think that’s bad (or good). I might try a few different placements over the next few days to make the ads unobstructive as well as fitting in the page design while still generating revenue. Here are a few placements I am thinking of:
- Horizontal, between the post and the trackbacks/comments (current position).
- Horizontal, at the bottom.
- Vertical, at the right of the post.
Which one of these would you like? Or suggest some other position as well.
Yes you should display text based ads. I think that blogs like yours are like content rich magazines and text based ads (you are talking about ad sense right?) actually add more value to your posts, thoughts and ideas. Like suppose you have a post for Muslim names and choosing a name for the baby and you have relevant text ads then they would be extra help for visitors who are definitely not obliged to click or buy any thing from these links.
To me, it would depend on how much money you can actually expect to see from it (a lot of these things don’t bring in more than couple of bucks a month) and how much control you have over the ads. But certainly text ads are a lot less intrusive than the blog ads I see on a lot of sites, which makes them almost as bad as commercial sites.
Hardly any money, on my blog, but I had put them up more out of interest to see what kinds of adds/links google would display.
They suck. They sucked for me at least. I have always been against most of advertising on my sites esp. at EruditionOnline. A lot of people including the team members insisted to put them and they ruined the whole world I created with notepad, my glasses, a table lamp and couple of sleepless nights. They ruin your user-interface and when Google doesn’t deliver as accurate and useful links most of the time, it’s hardly of any use. They are good for few months, recover your hosting costs and kick them off. That’s what I would have done if these team members weren’t in my way. As for you, it wouldn’t matter to me. Because I would have to scroll down so much as there is already enough text on right pane. And you know when does a user scroll down beyond the actual content. Yeah yeah, sorry I forgot their one wonderful use. While you have your UI there, Google now gives you an opportunity to build your own templates and save them, reuse them and whatever. I think Google saw a lot of people like me didn’t like their templates so they built their own so they gave the app there. That’s fun. But it comes with a cost – your precious time. Yeah, for experimentation, it’s not bad especially, if you are re-designing the site 😛
Can we vote more than once 🙂
Danial: Yes, I am thinking of Google Adsense.
Al-Muhajabah: If I do put up the ads, I’ll try to make them as unintrusive as possible.
how much money you can actually expect to see from it
I am not sure, but as you say it might be too low to be of any use.
Anyone got any idea how much one gets per click for Google Ads? Google seems to be very stingy in giving out such info.
Conrad: Not from the same IP or computer. If you do have a strong opinion about it, feel free to comment here. If you are just trying vote stuffing, try harder. 🙂
lol, I didn’t get any reply. Alright, Google gives different ads different weightage and money. For publishers, the rates change less quickly than for the advertisers depending on the no. of active bids. Hosting and design related have one of the top positions with casino on probably no. 1. Then grocery and shopping items come. Non-profit, design and art related give you 1 dollar after 10clicks or so (yeah, they really are like .11$). So, doing some rough mathematics according to your blog, you are likely to get your first 100$ after 833 clicks which, I hope, you can dedicate half a year for. As I said, on a personal site, it’s great for half of year to collect hosting money and other tangible costs. The intangibles can never be paid to you in most cases. The bottom line is that your labor of love in maintaining a free site is your own decision and you can’t force others to click and click. So, as for me, it’s fifty/fifty for your questions. You’ve to decide for yourself.
Link
Ejaz: I don’t have anything against ads if they are useful and unobstructive. The ads must obviously blend in with the website and look nice. They also should never annoy the user.
Some of the Google ads I am getting are related to the post content but others are not. I am not sure why the discrepancy.
At least one benefit of these ads would be that those looking for a girl to marry on my forced marriage posts will find an outlet. 🙂
I am expecting to at least earn back the hosting fees if I keep the ads up. They obviously can’t compensate for my time at all. But then blogging is something I like to do and I am not looking to make money off of it.
There is no way I can force anyone to click on the ads. Some who find the ads useful or are curious will click through, others won’t. Overall, it doesn’t matter to me much. Even if I don’t make up the hosting fees from the ads, it doesn’t matter much.
Right now, these ads are just an experiment. I’ll take a look at them in a couple of weeks and decide for or against. In the meantime, I am going to try different placements etc.
Okay, bro! Yo’ go! That was a nice clear-headed statements. I am almost done with new EO design as well as my current design projects at my company would be over soon. I am looking forward to communicate with different people over different things mainly web-related and sort of community work during summer, though neither I am on leaves nor am I student anymore 🙂
Your and KO’s sites are in my hitlist and I hope to sit down soon and see what we should and shouldn’t do about it. I think most of us have sorted out how to and when and where to blog, it’s time to jazz ‘em up, shall we? 🙂
Ejaz: That jazzing up will have to be done by someone else since I am extremely busy nowadays. That’s why I haven’t done anything with your Reflections blog either.
good