First up this is a 180° about turn I know but there is a reason for it, honest! When I first started blogging I added Google Ads, I mean who wouldn’t? The logic was really simple – it doesn’t cost a reader anything to click on them, and the blogger doesn’t pay to have them so all you ‘need’ is every visitor to click on a Google Ad each visit and you are laughing, if they click on 2 or even 3 you are starting to make serious money.
So I installed them and sat back and waited, and waited, then waited some more and then I got depressed with the fact that no one was clicking on the ads at all. To be honest I shouldn’t have been that surprised as when I stopped to think about how many, or more accurately how few Ads I clicked on on other sites why should my site be any different?
I sort of forgot all about them at that stage, removed them from the site, and looked at other options to monetize the site. Sponsorship was pretty easy to get, but hard work in terms of the number of people you have to approach, and maintaing it was a pain.
At this stage I was still blogging under the MyAppleStuff name which I now know was having an adverse effect on the Google Ads (more on that later).
So I switched to Chris Marshall, and broadened the content and built a stronger community, and decided that I would just run this site for the fun of it and not worry about any monetization – well except the Text Link Ads that have always been pretty good, or the text link ads that I got approached directly to do, oh and the readers offers that sometimes pay a small commission.
See it is really hard to have morals!!!
Next up, as many as you know, I started working with a internet marketing company and boy has that taught me a lot about Affinity Marketing, PPC, CTR, CPA etc.
One thing that was very apparent was that in the MyAppleStuff days the content was attracting people with very little disposable income, and who already had or knew about a lot of the Mac stuff that came up on the Ads.
Over the last couple of months I have been really focussing on Google Ads, Google Adwords, Affinity programmes etc over on Almerimar Life and I have made huge strides in making that site profitable.
As I love a challenge, and have already secured my current contracts through blogging, I decided that I would really ‘go for it’ and see how much I could make in total “through blogging” in 2008. As such it would be wrong not to throw this site into the mix, and while I am not going to start pushing the content for the sake of it I do hope that with the current content profile the site picks up some relevant GoogleAds that you find relevant.
As and when I run an affinity programme elsewhere that I think may be of interest I will include it, but with the geographical distribution of the readers it will be impossible to maximise any of these initiatives for everyone – in fact that is your security against me ever using this site to chase the cash, it is to diverse to ever work. Oh yes, Sponsorship is back on the menu as well.
Now estimating a good return on Google Ads is virtually impossible as it depends on so many factors, like readership demographics, site content, frequency of posting etc, but as a ‘rule of thumb’ $50 per day from a readership of 1,000 is around the right ballpark for anybody interested in that type of thing.
So I will post this and then figure out how to add Goggle Ads, and hopefully the geotagging will start to pick up some relevant and useful adverts soon.
$50 per day per 1,000???
I’m really suprised a blog could make that much. Amazing.
1,000 readers a day! I can always dream. But then again from small acorns…
Darren
If iit is the right type of blog that attracts both the right advertisers and the right readership sure it can.
Not many will though as most blogs are either too niche or too generic!
$50 per day for doing nothing? Cool! 😉
Is there a way you can control the degree of irritatingness that the ads display? Currently I’m seeing a Vodaphone/Nokia advert which has flashing imagery and text on a bright red background. Grrr.
I don’t generally mind static, pictorial adverts – such as the ones you’ve had for a while down the right hand side of this screen. But that Vodaphone advert displays a pretty high irritatingness factor! 😯
🙂 that Vodaphone one is a affinity marketing one, not a Google Ad, and yes I could have chosen a static banner from the options they make available.
I don’t know …. this could be a coincidence but this article about ads….. is ….. 666 words…. hmmmm 🙂
That is really funny!
I’m not sure what’s more scary here: the length of the article – or the fact that Mac counted it up? 🙂
He didn’t count it up – every post tells you how many words and images are described on the front page under each post.
Or did you know that I missed the point :-)?
Doh! Of course. Sorry Mac! 🙂
I rarely visit the front page (jumping straight into individual posts, courtesy of the RSS feed and NetNewsWire) and on occasions when I do, my eyes probably skip that information.
So Chris, can you actually tell when someone clicks the ad? I can’t remember the last time I actually clicked on an ad of any type. If something was referenced in the article that I was interested in, I simply highlighted it and googled from the option menu.
Well you know how many people click per day etc but now who, or where specifically and no alarm bell goes off to say one has just been clicked 🙂
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I’m a bit like Wayne – I tend to completely disregard adverts. I recognise the “shape” of, for example, Google text adverts and completely, mentally block them out. In fact, about the only ones to which I might pay attention are your “personal” ads – ie the ones on your Notice Board area. Adverts where the site’s author(s) are effectively making a personal recommendation for a product or service. It’s unlikely that I’d ever follow through something like Google advert links.
I think it’s largely the issue of the fact that I’d never engage in a financial transaction with whatever stranger might be at the far end of the link, so there’s little point in wasting time following the link in the first place. I’ll only give my credit card details to a company with whom I’ve already established a relationship or a company I perceive as being trustworthy (preferably through one or more personal recommendations).
That is one reason why I am going to add more ‘offers’ to the site, on items that I think may be of interest, and why I have added the Amazon (UK) store so that if you do shop at Amazon you can do so through the site and help support – well me actually 🙂
The Google Ads is funny. In theory the more focussd the content the more relevant the ads should become. At the moment they are settling down so although relevant in the way that they are iPhone they aren’t picking up off the site content yet. The fact is that they are open to abuse – you don’t have to have any intention of buying, just clicking generates income for the site that is hosting them.
Actually, the amazon ad is absolutely gorgeous compared to the google ads. They are not only relevant(!), but set apart so you can ignore them if you wanted and the box looks really nice.
I think one of the problems with the google ads is sometimes they are so obscure that you pass them right by. (Unless they are in their own special box.) I guess that can be both good and bad. Good because they are not in your face, which is nice, but at the expense of becoming unnoticeable. I did not realize that simply clicking one generated revenue, though. I guess I should have, but never thought in the way of site revenue instead of actually going to a page that was advertised. Did I say that right?
Well I guess Ads are meant to be obvious to attract attention 🙂
Yes you said that right. Google (correctl) forbid you from soliciting clicks, and certainly don’t allow you to clock on ads on your own site 🙂
There are whole businesses set up that will guarantee your revenue – they have rows of people just clicking on ads, then they swap ISP addresses anc click for another hour etc. I have come across bloggers who will split the revenue with their readers as well.
Is al lvery short term, and not really worth it in the long run. Google tend to find these people out in the long run so unless you want a quock ‘in and out’ revenue hit you are just risking your site.
Much better to try and offer good content, to attract relevant ads that your readers actually want to click on to find out more information about the product.
One other thing just came to mind on this topic. Something that infuriates me is that comparatively new style where adverts are injected as pop-up ads into your text. They initially appear as links but all you have to do is to mouse-over the link to have your viewing space invaded by adverts. If you’re not sure of the sort of thing I mean, here’s an example. Note that you have to wait for the page to finish loading since these are not regular links.
I hates them, I do, I hates them! Grrrr!!!
I agree with you – just seems a little ‘sneaky’ to me. At least with the style I use you see them upfront and can click or ignore as you want.
Well those are just plain…Rude!