Personal news before I start for this evening. My new computer arrived today, I got set up for my Bloomberg trial (I feel smarter already; I can do wonders with a Bloomberg Terminal), and I got my first bona fide offer for advertising on my blog. My problem — what do I charge, and do I need to redesign my site to create more real estate on the screen? Programming isn’t my problem there per se; HTML isn’t rocket science, and I have hacked my way though probably two dozen programming languages in my years as an actuary.
The greater question is what I want my blog to look like for readers; getting a little cash flow is nice, but if it turns off the readers, that’s a minus. Any advice that you all can offer me is appreciated, particularly any counsel from bloggers accepting advertising at present.
Beyond that, I have plans to add a book review section, and I have a number of article ideas, many generously suggested by readers. I will begin writing more longer-dated stuff as the panic subsides, but I don’t see that happening for a few weeks at least.
If you want to see “market rates” for display advertising, go to blogads.com, where you will see what different sites with a wide range of traffic charge for ads. (You can even sign up, if you want).
I imagine that you could get more if someone approached you directly, however, since blogads.com needs to take their cut.
Oh, and it won’t hurt to sign up with Google’s or Yahoo’s program either. The text ads are rather unobtrusive, and you have some control over placement. You can also “ban” ads that you feel are unacceptable (i.e. penny stock picking services ads pop up a lot on financial sites)
Many people run firefox with adblocker plugin and it zaps all ads on the net. ALL. Including yahoo and google ads. Text and banner! Whatever ad you show, there is a good likelihood I’ll never see it. So you can pollute away like crazy, and I don’t care!
Feel free to advertise. We all want you to continue writing!
It’s your blog and now your business, but…
I see most web users at ease today with advertising. They understand that it’s the price to pay for free content.
I can only echo Stephen. As long as they are not malicious or interfere with reading, I have have no problems with ads. I am most favorable towards single columns of ads (a la Paul Kedrosky) or a banner along the top, and tolerate interstitials like Bloomberg.com or Salon.com. I am not as big a fan of pop-ups/unders (and I generally block them) or ads that cover content until closed.
I think the book list is a great idea, and look forward to it.
I would recommend a slight redesign to create a designated space for adds. The current design is readable and efficient, and should be relatively easy to drop something into.
We dropped our ads completely when the monetary value dropped below a specific threshold where we decided it wasn’t worth the imposition to our users.
I don’t mind ads that sit quietly on the periphery of the page, but when twinkling flashing ads distract me while trying to read the text, I set adblock to forbid the origin of the distraction permanently.
In general, ads are fine: they support the site. Ads that interfere with reading the site are unacceptable.
Like most others, I don’t mind ads. Like most others, I’ve become inured to them.
But there is a certain je neis se cuas to a site that doesn’t have ’em. Half of it is saying we kick it old-skool, when web pages were by the people for the people. And you can expect by necessity we’ll keep our bandwidth costs in-check by keeping the useless eye-candy graphics in check. The other half is kind of like magazines on newspaper stock, it says, “yeah, no denying it, we’re small, but it’s the content that matters, not the glossy stock, besides we are never going to have mass-market appeal, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise.”
So I guess it comes down to how you see yourself (since blog sites are necessarily a personal reflection) and where you want to take the site. If deep down you are an iconoclast, then I think you’ll not want ads.
Best.
David,
So happy to visit your blog and gain from your knowledge and writing. It’s a class site… crisp, clean, and great content. Thank you for that.
Following many years of being loyal subscribers to various sites, we have dropped most of those paid subscriptions (one in which you participate) because of the horrific flashing ads which interfere with the content. I agree with bkh on those ads which “sit quietly” as being acceptable. FWIW
Thanks.