You don’t see the Ads on this page. They aren’t there. They are invisible. Since they are invisible make sure you don’t click on them.
There is an ongoing debate in the blogosphere about putting Google ads on your blog. Some bloggers such as Steve Pavlina have many Adsense ads on their site while others such as Yaro Starak have moved away from them all together.
Erik Vossman over at Good at Everything has taken a middle of the road approach. He writes…
I find Google ads to be helpful at certain times although I don’t tend to click and them often when I am on other blogs. I go for the articles not the click through. My goal with this weblog is to have many return readers who find my insights helpful. Therefore for the next couple of months I will keep the ads to a minimum. I may find that bringing them back is a good idea but only when readers find me helpful to read.
I like Erik’s approach. I have found Google Ad’s to be effective at times but require a lot of work to match the current content of my blog. I have had to block over 100 different ads to cut down on content that doesn’t meet my standards that I have set up for this site. And most ads just become invisible to regular readers. So what does Google say to make Adsense more effective? They have a heat sheet that points out the hot spots for ads on a site. The most effective place… right here in front of your face in the middle of this article. You can’t miss them. They are in your way and in your face.
Ads in the middle of content are irritating, like a child leaving their skates on the floor for you to trip over. You trip… you get mad. But when you trip, you’ll pick up the skates and move them out of the way. When ads are in the middle of content you are much more likely to see them and think about them. And then you do the unthinkable… even though you are irritated with them being in your face as you are trying to read… you click on one.
Your curiosity gets the best of you…
What is that ultra low rate on a home loan?
Where is that timeshare resale for only $500?
What is that new success strategy guaranteed to make you more productive?
You click… you see the ad website… and you buy the product or service a certain percentage of the time.
It’s human nature and a very effective strategy for Google who is valued at over 8 billion dollars.
Google has a policy against clicking on your own ads. The other day there was an ad that showed up on this blog that was real interesting to me. It was about a new CSS editor and I had to know more about it. I couldn’t click on it or I would void my TOS agreement with Google. The ad had no visible URL so I was in a quandry. How could I see the ad site?
I realized the only solution was to fire up Internet Explorer and use the Adsense preview tool. I fired up IE and was able to view the site and download the new tool. Unfortunately I’m a big Firefox fan and I was rather dismayed to have to open IE to see the ad. The advertiser almost lost a sale…
My question is… should I subject my readers to in-your-face ads?
I would love to hear your comments…
Oh by the way… resist the temptation to click on that weight loss ad… you really can’t lose 10 pounds in a week… at least I don’t think you can??
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Well… if you’re going to ask your readers, then no… you shouldn’t put ads on your site. It will degrade the usability of your site, make the content less readable, and make me think less of you as a human being.
Hmmm… there’s an ad for Kids Crafts. My five-year old daughter has a two-week vacation from school. Click!
It’s good to hear from you Steve. Without comments on your site it seems like a long time since I’ve talked with you. I appreciate your response. I looked up a comment that I remember reading on your site in February about Adsense and whether you should deploy it or not.
Anonymous wrote… “I’d be wary about bringing AdSense onto your site…
On the other hand, it could turn out that people who visit your site become voracious consumers of personal development products (if they remember the 3% rule), follow your Adsense links and you make a killing with your Adsense income. Because of this outside chance, I’m posting anonymously so it won’t ever come back to haunt me.”
Hmmm… with over $4000/month in Adsense income at your site last month it looks like people enjoy personal development products… Keep up the good work!
John
Hi John, thanks for the mention in your write-up. I also agree with the middle of the road line and when it comes down to it it’s all about what you want to achieve with your blog.
I’ll be honest, if I made $4000+ a month in exchange for putting AdSense ads all over my blog as Steve has done I’d keep doing it too. In my case since my traffic isn’t quite the same as Steve’s nor are the ads that Google displays that good it’s not worth my while and the choice not to put on ads is easy.
At the moment I’m not sure how to progress regarding advertising on my site. I’ll probably start chasing up some advertisers on my own so I get good targeted campaigns and a little bit more money than what AdSense pays. However in the long run I want to have my own courses and membership service and that’s all that I would sell on my site assuming it made the most profits for me.
Keep up your blogging!
Thanks for the reply Yaro. I have learned a tremendous amount about SEO from your website. I personally like ads that are beneficial to my readers and to put the ads in a visible but not an ‘in your face” location. I really like a win-win situation where readers aren’t offended by a screen full of ads and find the content of the ads helpful.
I wish there was a company that offered business oriented ads that I could choose the category and not have to worry about some rogue word pulling up inappropriate ads.
With every new post on my blog the adsense ads change and many times they come up with some crazy category that has nothing to do with my content. I really hate it when I’ve got psychic hotline ads on my site.
Adsense seems to work great on static “article” pages where you can adjust your keywords. If you hear of anything more business oriented let me know. In the meantime I think I’ll adjust to what works best for my readers and offers them the maximum benefit.
Keep up the great work!
John
Hey John- Thanks for the quoting. I agree with trying to find advertisers on your own. Besides getting good quality ads that would be useful for people stuffing money in Google’s expanding pockets is getting old.
I am sticking with the middle of the road until my traffic warrants more advertising. I will then approach ads like Yaro suggests. Besides getting good targeted ads, if you are able to successfully court some decent companies to advertise on your site, that would be great to write about, more traffic to your site because people want to learn how, you offer a good service, more want to advertise……….
Oh what a great circle. Anyway, thanks for the mention. Love your site.
Erik
I’m just wondering how you were able to insert the adsense code in the middle of your post. Did you simply just copy and paste the code in there or do you have some plug in that did it for you. If it’s the latter, then please share
I’m experimenting with Adsense placements as we speak. I’ve had them on the side of my side for about a year now and I must say, after a few weeks, I didn’t even see them anymore. I think as long as you don’t put too many on your site and you limit yourself to using Google’s unobtrusive ads, you’re in the clear.
Thanks for the reply Goob. The Adsense code is provided by a Adsense plug-in for WordPress. If you use WordPress you can find the plug-in link on their codex.
I am a frequent reader of this blog and stevepavlina.com. To be honest, I think that the ads on site’s like these are perfectly fine. Steve provides some really great information on his site, and he does not charge us, so he should be able to make money for the knowledge that he shares with us. To me, the ads on sites such as this and stevepavlina.com are like the tolls on toll roads. Sure, they may get in the way, be annoying at times, but in return they allow us to access some really great things at very minimal expenditure.
Thanks for the reply Mike. You have a very interesting blog. I appreciate your viewpoint. I’m experimenting with my own Flash banners that hopefully are informative and will take readers to pages with more information about a post or article and make the site more interactive.
John