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:

1. Are these ads maximizing my income?

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.

2. Do I have recurring advertisers, and do I plan on finding some?

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.

3. Are my ads even being clicked?!

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.

4. Is there something else I should put in place of sidebar banner ads?

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.

5. Why do I even have these 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?

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