Where are your blog’s profits coming from? In my perusal of the blogosphere, I’d conclude it was from the use of AdSense.
Hardly any blogs I’ve encountered, whether personal or professional, make use of deep affiliate links, sponsors, or in house advertising.
A recent WebProNews article suggests nixing AdSense altogether in favor of in house advertising.
…online marketer and co-founder of Fortune Interactive, Andy Beal, feels many Webmasters are devaluing their advertising space by selling to the lowest AdSense bidder. Running AdSense exclusively or even concurrently with in-house advertising is an exercise in low self-website-esteem.
And I’m inclined to agree, to an extent. AdSense is a very viable and sometimes quite lucrative source of income, but I believe it’s about how AdSense is integrated into a site and whether it’s used as a first or last resort.
There are websites that do well with AdSense, but look cluttered and, dare I say, cheap. Certainly not a site I’d recommend or link to. It’s very easy to see that the site’s main, if not only, stream of revenue is from AdSense.
Then, there are others that have integrated AdSense rather nicely, combined with in house advertising and affiliate programs, while still appearing professional and appealing to the eyes.
In researching and reviewing the financially successful blogs, I’ve concluded that monetizing a blog is all about balance. Balancing and leveraging your various revenue streams.
Consider the niche your blog falls into, consider who the readers will most likely be, where they’ll be coming from, what they will look to find, and how to best capitalize on it. You may end up realizing AdSense isn’t the way to go after all.
They actually have 6 adsense blocks on the front page atm, plus loads of inhouse.
Their first few posts don’t have adsense, so that makes it deceptively low priority
# December 10th, 2005
Hi Andy,
It’s not necessarily about how many ads they are displaying on the page (the former reference I made, but didn’t link to) had over 15 AdSense blocks, appeared extremely cluttered, to the point of not being able to read the content.
Now, with a choice between the two - I’d prefer Engadget any day and I assume many visitors would make the same choice as well.
In a comparison, Engadget has better balanced each of their revenue streams for the optimal result, whereas a lot of other website owners just place adverts wherever and hope for the best result.
# December 11th, 2005