The first thing I did when I logged into Blogussion after returning from my vacation was take down the 125×125 banner ads on our sidebar. All paid for ads had expired, and all that was left was a few affiliate banners and an “Advertise Here” banner.
When I took the banner ads down, I wondered to myself why I even added them to the blog in the first place. Did I want to make money from my young blog? Or was I doing it because that’s what all the blogs nowadays do?
For the 2 months the ads have been up, there have only been a few sales, in which none of them were recurring. Meaning that people bought ads for one month and didn’t buy them again the next month. The main goal of selling banner ads on your blog (besides making money) was to get these recurring advertisers who will pay you month after month to keep their ads up on your site. That’s not something I had, or knew how to do so I figured it would be best to remove the ads.
Banner Ads Don’t Help Build Your Community
This blog is still new (about 5 months old) and the community is still being built. When I say community, I am saying my commentators, RSS/Email Subscribers, people who fill out the contact forms, Poll Voters, first time visitors, pretty much anyone who even looks at Blogussion.
Those 4 stupid little cubes full of affiliate links just weren’t worth the space they took up. They probably did more damage than good:
- They clogged up the sidebar
- They were above important sidebar content like Popular Posts
- They added to the load time of the blog (images make pages load slower)
- There were very few clicks
Obviously when I have new readers come to my blog, I want them to get to the most valuable information. I feel that my sidebar has valuable content in it, and the ads were taking up the top position on my sidebar. The content above the fold should always be your most important information.
What is “the fold”?
In Web Design, the fold is the point of your website where the users have to start scrolling down the page to see the rest of the content.
The content above that fold should always be the most important information on your blog. You want to stuff up all of your best content to the top of your sidebar, because you want to keep as many visitors to your blog as possible and make them stay for a little while. In retrospect, you only have 10 seconds to do that.
Content you want above the fold
You really can’t put too much content above the fold, because 1) different browser sizes means different sized folds 2) you will have a scroll bar eventually.
So when I removed those banner ads from my sidebar, I had so much more room to put my important information higher up. Some recommendations for what content you should put up high in your sidebar:
- Popular/Recent Posts
- RSS Subscription Box
- eBooks/Large Guides/An Extremely Useful Post(s)
- Category List
What is the pattern you notice in the above points? Everything I recommended above are to make people want to browse through your blog. When you have ads on the top of your sidebar, you limit the content people can see and they will often miss out on some valuable stuff. I moved my Popular Posts to the second position in my sidebar, and now I hope to see new visitors access our best posts easier because they’re more noticeable.
Take A Look At Your Blog
If you’re new like me, I bet you are having trouble finding recurring advertisers. It happens to all new bloggers, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
But right now, take the time to evaluate yourself and your blog if you use banner ads. Even if you do have some purchases up on your blog. Ask yourself some questions I made up with a little added commentary:
- Are these ads maximizing my income?
- Do I have recurring advertisers, and do I plan on finding some?
- Are my ads even being clicked?!
- Is there something else I should put in place of sidebar banner ads?
- Why do I even have these ads?
There are other methods to making money through your blog besides banner ads. It’s even possible that they have a negative effect on your income. I read a great post from Marko Saric that popped into my head that had a great influence on my decision to remove banner ads. You should read it too.
You should always try to find advertisers who will come back and buy ads again on your blog. It ensures steady income, and it is great to know ahead of time how many ad sots you will have open on your blog. It’s not that one time advertisers are bad to have, but the fewer empty ad slots you have the better.
Like traffic, you need to keep up with how many times ads get clicked. You can use that information to decide whether or not those ads are even doing you and your advertisers any good. Plus, if you have just affiliate links and aren’t getting clicks, then that is just a total waste of space.
Like I talked about above, there are some pretty important things you can add to the top of your sidebar in place of those ads.
Don’t you agree that by using 125×125 sidebar ads, we conform a little? Why do we choose any banner ads when we know deep down inside that they probably won’t get purchased? Maybe it gives us more of that “official” look that we all want to become blogging super stars. Whatever the reason, I know ads are not necessary for my blog to make me money.
So what do you think about sidebar banner ads now? If you are a blogger who thinks that just because you have affiliate banners up will make you look good to potential advertisers, you might be in for a surprise.
Will you continue using banner ads on your blog after reading this post and evaluating yourself?
Photo by Kristin Pishdadi
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Welcome back Alex! I don’t get any clicks on my banner ads. I am considering taking them down too. I choose my readers over ads any day. I do want to place my popular posts in the spot that I put ads in.
Kai Lo’s last blog post..Pagerank Is Only A Small Factor For Google
Thanks Kai, it’s good to be back!
That’s cool Kai, you can always bring banner ads back later when you have a larger audience, and if you ever get a lot of ad requests.
Welcome back Alex, we missed ya. Hope you had a good time!
Oddly enough, I was just thinking about the ads on my site and thought I’m not really making any money off them so why do I have them and like you said, because it just seems the thing to do.
I just removed them with you giving me the incentive and it just gives a much neater look without those ads appearing. I may try a couple at the very bottom and one or two on the side bar but if it looks cluttered again, then I’ll just remove them again.
Thanks for the incentive.
Off subject if you don’t mind me asking you a question about something totally different. Will you ever address how to make a blog button? It probably isn’t a must have item for the type of blog you have but you seem to “teach” so many different things I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
Thanks,
Peg
Peg’s last blog post..Come On In For Everyday Steals and Deals On Bargains For Clothing Shoes and Accessories
Thanks Peg, it’s been nice talking to you on Twitter!
That’s cool to hear Peg. Monetization is all about experimenting with different kinds of techniques, and one great “experimental” thing is actually to switch up where you put your ads. It;s great to see you’re already on the road to making some money off of your blog! :p
I’d love to do a graphics tutorial here, but what exactly do you mean a “blog button”? If you could clarify, I’d love to try something like that.
This is the kind of button I’m talking about but I want to use the picture I have on my blog along with http://kidsclothingwholesalebargains.blogspot.com/ . People use them to exchange links on other sites.
I don’t know if this will show up below, I just did a copy and paste.
If not, it is in the right column where it says grab my button at http://www.mommysonlinegaragesale.blogspot.com/
Thanks Alex
This posts of yours forced me to think about banner on my websites. I never did any kind of experiments with choosing other options as well. But I just put banner so that my blog can have some graphics.
Your poll is disclosing that almost equal number of votes for income and traffic.
Just a short note – This one is not at all looking like as blog of 6 months old only. This one is matured and focussed one.
That’s cool. Did you decide to keep your ads, get rid of them, or even start experimenting? Let me know, I’d love to get some feedback from other people so if I ever choose to put ads back up here, I will have some advice on it.
I’m pretty surprised income is so high. I guess since I am only 15 years old, I don’t see money as the big issue opposed to other bloggers who are older and money is a whole different situation for them.
I appreciate the comment about our age. But it’s true, the blog is still a baby!
Hi Alex, good to see you back, how was your vacation?
I totally agree with you for the ads! If you remember my blog the first time you went there and after the re-looking… Removing those Ads is the first thing I did.
I’m not sure if it’s related or not, but my stats have been affected positively by the change.
In fact, if you look at my blog, I don’t have any ads at all! When people come to my blog all what they can find is great content (at least I want to believe), and they see me as someone who is here to provide genuine quality content, not to get them to click on my ads!
Putting Ads slow down the growth of young sites, that’s my conclusion.
Nicolas Prudhon’s last blog post..Strategic Guest Post Writing
Thanks Nicolas, I loved reading your guest post that was published while I was away. But vacation was great, I miss Florida so much. It just seems like such a downgrade to go from beautiful Florida to rainy New Jersey! But what are you gonna do, right?!
That’s awesome to see Nicolas. If you take a look around Blogussion, the closest thing you will see to an ad is the affiliate link I added to the bottom of the design. And that’s nothing. It just gives a new blog such as yours and mind a much better appearance to our audience.
@Alex: I don’t entirely endorse your view. Had recently read about not selling the wine too soon and I agree with that. You should have banners and affiliate banners on sidebar after you have reached a decent readership. I would say around 300 RSS readers and 500 unique visitors per day is the minimum traffic before you can think about those banners again.
The post by Shannon Lily right? He makes some good points in that article. I am just against ads before the community on your blog is there. I feel that they have a negative impact on the growth of your readership, and with them I believe that even getting 300-500 RSS subscribers will be hard to get.
Even if they are affiliate banners, I am still against ads.
Now, when the community is grown up such as you had said, it could be time to bring in those ads. I agree with you there Jeet.
Great post. How do you recommend making money without banner ads?
teenwebguru’s last blog post..Like our New Design?
There are so many ways to make money without ads.
Let’s see, off the top of my head I can think of:
- Affiliate Links
- Sponsored Reviews
- Affiliate Product Review
- AdSense
- Email Marketing (pretty much affiliate links again)
- Selling Links
Just read some blogs man, there are some blogs that will go over ways to make the most out of what I listed above, and more. Let me know if anything works for you!
Affiliate Links – So only links within post and no banners. No problems
)
Sponsored Reviews – If you can get people to pay you for nofollow links in review, this would be good. But unfortunately most review seekers are actually backlink seekers.
Affiliate Product Review – Yup, that works best if you are part of an affiliate network.
AdSense – Better have banners than adsense
Email Marketing – Sure
Selling Links – Again, we are entering in murky waters here. Not recommended at all.
I would like to add in-content link like Kontera were good but they couldn’t sustain the goodness. There are other in-content link options that you might want to try out.
Thanks for the descriptions Jeet! I hope this helps you out more Jack (teenwebguru).
I have to agree with Jeet in some extent and i do consider that direct advertising on blog works great to some extent….
Rajesh Kanuri @ TechCats´s last blog ..Best Blogging Extensions For Google Chrome Browser
I couldn’t agree more, which is why i will start offering advertising for sale with the upgraded theme about to be unleashed…almost 1 1/2 years after starting the blog.
Ad income (or much of any income) wasn’t even on the to do list until now….building my name, reputation and community was (and always will be) 1st and foremost. The three 125’s you see now are 2 freebies for those who were super kind to me in ways and 1 was won in a contest.
However, if you feel you must have something up, affiliates are sooo much better then blanks. If I may drop a link….
http://www.directsaleswebmarketing.com/blank-blog-advertisement-slots-bad/
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Scamming Top Commenter Lists With Threaded Comments
That’s a cool idea to give away free banners. But I feel like that also may cause some people to start thinking they can take advantage of that? Let me know how you take care of doing that Dennis, I’m actually pretty interested!
I didn’t advertise freebies, but yea that could get you in deep. Those are just for the hell of it basically.
The first is my blog designer. She doesn’t want to be actively promoted as she says she has all the wok she wants right now, but I really wanted to do something ya know? She puts up with a lot from me. lol. I figure if she gets clicks, that’s cool, if not that’s OK too.
The second has been a good friend and colleague since I met her; helped me a bunch with different things….figured again it was the least I could do.
The 3rd was won in last months comment contest.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Scamming Top Commenter Lists With Threaded Comments
That’s cool man. So it’s fairly similar to how we link to blogs and websites that we like here.
Rocking post Alex!!
I am now considering to remove the banners from LS.
Farrhad A | The Dollar Diary’s last blog post..Ways To Make Money On Youtube
You make a great point, in my case I’m building my readership and my histats seem promising because its only been maybe 1 month but you’ve enlightened me to think further, perhaps Jeet’s comment deserves further analysis. Perhaps when I’m done with the full makeover can I even begin to address these advertising issues.
Nokia Mobile Talk’s last blog post..YouTube Mobile for s60 updated to 2.09
yeah you make a great point , I have seen bloggers who call themselves as ” Pure Bloggers” They don’t host any ads or things like that .but then also they earn money from ot . you know why ??? because they have a large audience who trust them and they can use this relationship anytime online or offline . the monthly earning from adsense or from affiliates for 98% of blogs is not even enough to pay the bills
Hey Alex, nice article.
Hi
Im what u can call the new kid on the blog! i just started my blog a few months ago and the first thing i did was placed my affiliate banners on there, many on the footer section of my page. I have been asking my self this question for weeks now, but i justified myself by saying “my ads arent getting clicked because my blog is new and im having issues with traffic” but after reading this article and learning that blogussion has only just started for 5 months… i removed all my ads right away!
Lam N´s last blog ..Blogging VS Network Marketing Part 1
You made some good points there Alex. Thank you for taking the time to explain that and I think you are absolutely right! There are tones of other ways to earn some income to keep your hosting going or paying the bills without having to display “rainbow” ads that don’t even go with your blog design.
Good call, nice blog!
Gordon Cindric´s last blog ..6 Ways to Write Better Than Chuck Norris
Hey, I really like the fact that you’ll dont use banner ads. but I was wondering, do you monetize this site at all? If so, then how?
I like how you’re using the banner ad space / button-looking-thing as a link back to this post about why you’re not using any banner ads! Ad blindness is becoming a bigger issue than ever, and people really just don’t like being constantly sold to. I dropped banner ads from most of my sites and never regretted it. Yeah, there’s still one or two that make use of adsense, but that’s about it.
Clicking around the monetization category here I saw a good post about reviews, and between that & coupons it sounds pretty similar to how I get away with avoiding banners. Just focus on what your target audience is looking for before they make a purchase, and give them exactly what they’re after. This means honesty, truth, and info they can trust. We all know no product/service is perfect, so be upfront about the limitations and weaknesses just as much as you’re upfront about the product’s strengths. Let your customers make decisions about which flaws they’re willing to live with.
Better information => happier customers => better reputation => more word of mouth => more sales. It seems a LOT more effective than trying to throw as much random traffic as you can at a bunch of random billboards.
John´s last blog ..Dreamhost Coupon and Promo Codes
I think banner ads can give a site an official look if done tastefully and in moderation. But they can also give you the money-grabbing material girl look which isn’t really one of my core values. So no ads for me:)
one of the most awesome posts i have read in recent times….but still i will stick to these ads as i hope of earning through them one day
IndianCashMaker´s last blog ..Blog Life Cycle Day 10- Blogging in Next 6 Months- Part II
I removed my ad slots too. People usually don’t click on ads. I think there are another ways to engage people to buy your stuff.
Interacting with community on your niche and giveaways are some of them. What we can’t forget is that we should try to interact genuinely, not just thinking in the return.
Because the next great idea or improvement of an idea can flourish in community discussions. Most of the rich and successful people have done the second option (improvements). And when the idea becomes action, it helps the entire society.
Sorry for any english mistake, I am learning!
Paulo Miranda´s last blog ..60 Beautiful Oriental Style Artworks
I think I have to disagree with you on this one.
“Banner Ads Don’t Help Build Your Community”
What about the fact that users who see advertisements view them as a form of social proof? As long as you use filler ads which are in essence affiliate links then you should still be able to convey to readers that not only is your blog popular, but you’re also popular enough to get paid.
If you want to take the LONG TERM strategy of making money on a blog, then yes you can delay using advertisements until it is absolutely necessary but then again it all depends on the goals of your blog. For me the only reason why I blog is to make money. I make my living by running websites and blogging so of course I’ll earn this money through a variety of means but one of the most profitable ones I’ve found is from direct ad sales.
In content advertising will always win out in the end (i.e. me linking to products that I know are good and being paid a commission when my readers buy them) but that doesn’t mean I’ll turn my back on direct ad sales.
Chris Guthrie
Chris Guthrie´s last blog ..Top 7 tips I used to make $41,438.42 in 2009 with Amazon Associates
I guess the question now becomes: “How will you eventually make money through your blog?”
Will you provide services? Write a book? Offer members only tips or consulting?
DanielthePoet´s last blog ..Coming Soon
I’ll be honest.. I used to be a banner ad man.. but I’ve learned that not having ads is so much nicer… and you still can make a wonderful living online. The key is having an awesome community and providing them with products and services they need anyways. If you care about them, an income will naturally happen.
Seth´s last blog ..Very Straightforward Methods to Draw Traffic Back to Old Posts