21-Jul-2008
In Praise Of Text Over Widgets For Making Money
| I want to carry on a little more today on the theme I started in my previous post regarding adverts in widgets. Following the post Dean Jutilla of Widget Bucks was good enough to leave a comment. It really emphasised my belief that most widget style adverts aren't of value to the average blog unless the products shown tie in exactly with the subject matter of the blog. I mentioned that camera ads would be okay for a photography blog, for example, but put those same ads on a general blog and making money from them would be virtually negated. As Dean wrote: "... you are 100% correct, the more contextual the ad, the better the performance. These ads are a tough go on affiliate marketing sites ..." Space is valuable on a blog so has to be put to the best use. As I see it the majority of widget style ads and banner ads in general are a waste of space unless used properly. If they aren't contextual the space should perhaps be filled with something else - even dear old AdSense. At least with AdSense the ads tie in reasonably well to the blog's niche providing you don't wander to far from the subject. I remember once writing about the traffic exchange program Blog Soldiers in depth and ending up with military adverts! (Note: Blog Soldiers is not compatible with AdSense). Affiliate programs aren't just a matter of joining and then slapping the banner ads on a blog. It doesn't work like that unfortunately, it's not that easy. We have to 'know' what our readers are more likely to click on and give them the right ads to do so. I saw that on one of my blogs yesterday all of the clicks on ads were on AdSense - the other ads were ignored. This means I need to do some work on that blog and find more appropriate ads to run alongside AdSense. I still feel that the most productive money making advertising is text within a post. Good luck, Mike. YouGov: Complete surveys and polls for payment - genuine company. Labels: adverts, making money, Widget |
Mike, your Blog Soldiers link is broken. Maybe it's meant to be, but if not then you might like to correct it.
Hope you had a nice time in Austria.
Thanks Tom. I've mended the Blog Soldiers link - I'm in too much of a rush recently.
Austria was great, coming back wasn't!
Mike.