Is Aaron Wall Right About Early Monetizing?
Should You Put Ads On Your New Blog?
Ads or no ads on your new blog? Does it matter? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems few have written about this since 2007.
Aaron Wall of SEOBook said this about monetizing your site: “Many sites fail because they fill their site with ads before they get a loyal following.”
Notice he said “fill their site”? What about one or a few AdSense ads over at the side, away from your content? Do people really get that mad and go away? Or do ads make people trust you less?
Another writer says “Don’t monetize your blog with any kind of networks or affiliate programs from the start.
AskShane.org is not in favor of monetizing from the start either. He quotes Aaron Wall as saying “don’t monetize your site until you hit 1,000 visitors/day.”
Aaron himself explains on SEOBook.com that it’s easier to get links for a non-commercial site. ‘Put the ads in later when you get the links,’ he advises. If you don’t stray from your site’s original purpose, “most of the links will likely stay.”
Wow. It’s 2009, so I doubt if people will book a cruise on the AdSense profits they haven’t made yet. Yet should blogging just be a hobby if we can’t work on it full time?
One thing’s for sure: people hate to be sold. It’s true, indirect selling works much better. In fact, here’s some great insight on how to sell anything.
Want even more ideas? Here’s 101 ways to monetize your blog without irritating your readers.
I’m going to do some testing on this here. For now, the AdSense ads are gone. Let me know what you think.
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I don’t know of anything that has happened that would change this, but it’s definitely worth a discussion. My biggest thing is that monetization too often diverts the focus from more important things. I see people spending most of their time trying to generate more income without ever working to answer the question of whether the site can even be a viable, ongoing business.
If you spend time creating something of value, you kill two birds with one stone: you create a real business and you’re able to generate very significant revenue from it.
Shane, thanks for your feedback. You make a good point. Adsense on a new blog was kind of an experiment here. Fifteen hundred pageviews without a click. Of course this is not all-conclusive. It does seem to support what you and everyone has been saying, though. Ads don’t seem to be worth it right now.