I've decided to blog full-time in January and knew that I had my work cut out for me. I've only been blogging since August 08; before that I only used the computer to create document or play the Sims. Needless to say I have a lot to learn. I know that blogging is not a get rich quick venture, far from it, but it has become a passion that I believe is the best fit for all the things that I want to accomplish in my life so I am willing to be patient and work hard. Still I feel torn, I hate visiting sites that seem to have more ads than content; I think that it looks ugly, is very distracting and seems to represent a little greed. I'm sure that's harsh judgment but that's what I think. Then there is a part of me that's desperate to make money and prove to my friends and family that I can and will become a successful blogger. So I want to fill the blog with many revenue generating links and services so that I can make money now.
I blame that desperation for leading me to make a bad decision. I was reading up on ad link programs on the day before Easter. With some time on my hands I decided to try out it on one blog to see if it was for me. I picked Spiritual Sunday because blog would be the next to have a new post. I did hesitate a little on experimenting with that blog in particular but I thought that I could always cancel it if I did not like it. So I went for it with the intention of setting it up on 6 other blogs if it went well.
It took a couple of hour before the service was turned on but as soon as it was I again felt torn. A part of me felt excited that I figured how to do something new on my own, even though it was really simple. I was also happy about bringing in new revenue, but mostly I was upset. I thought that the links looks bad and I was scared that LL&L would lose some of its integrity. Now people would look at my blog like I've look at others blogs and think its ugly, distracting and seems to represent greed. After all Jesus Christ was a keyword for the car insurance ads. I tried to sooth my concern by telling myself that the readers would understand, what I did not acknowledge was how much I dislike it.
Silver and Gold
I could use your help to decide my next move please let e know what you think about Spiritual Sunday containing contextual link ads and what do think about link ads in general? I am leaning towards removing the link ads from this blog but putting them on my Monday-Friday blogs. Do you think that would be a good solution?
1 comments:
1- Great post!
2- I also HATE blogs with a lot of ads. Yesterday a reader sent me his link and asked me to visit his blog, that I might like it. So I clicked and he didn't have any posts on his page, only BIG ads. It was ugly and an insult for all the bloggers like us who do their best to post somehting enjoyable.
3-For your ads:
I like the links but can you use adsense with the contextuel links?
Since you have many blogs, you can try diferent ads network for each of them and see which program is better and then apply it to your Monday-Friday blogs.
4-I dont know for you but my blog has more visitors on weekdays (it's common for 90% of the blogs). I read an article about that and I noticed that I was having the same problem, and I'm happy to finally be able to reach the same amount of page views everyday of the week. If your traffic is lower on week-ends, tell me and I'll give you my tips.
5- The other ways to make money online are to participate in a clicking ad program and online surveys.