wayne on July 7, 2008
I've been asked by a few people about the ads on my site. Why do I have them, are they making me any money and how did I put them on my site. Here's my response to some of those questions, as well as some thoughts putting ads on your site.
Why do I have Ads on my Blog?
I have a two reasons for this.
- I am trying to supplement my income. I'm not rich, in fact I'm scraping by nicely. I earn a little bit of coin each time someone clicks on an ad. This can add up over time, and I suspect that more traffic will mean more hits on the ads, thus making more money for me. This isn't always the case perhaps, but it makes sense that more traffic means more hits.
- Since my posts are found via Google and other search engines, people may think that one of my posts will be the end of their search. I hope the post does answer what they are searching for, but we know that this also is not always the case. By including ads on my blog there is a chance that visitors may find what they are looking for through an ad. Because these ads change to be relevant to the content of the page, the chances are good this will happen from time to time.
My primary reason is to make a little extra cash for my family. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to not have any ads on my site, and perhaps that day will come. For now however I need to try to make some extra cash however I can to help support myself and my family.
Are you making any money?
Not really. I've had a Google AdSense account from years now, and I've placed ads on various web sites with minimal results. WayneJohn.com is the first web site that I've been able to truly focus on and begin to see any financial return on the ads. Keep in mind that being a web developer is not easy, and very time consuming. So when you have contracts with others to build web sites, it's your own personal sites that get to ride in the back seat. I've only recently had time to work on WayneJohn.com and really get the site going with something I like. I'm a picky bitch sometimes.
For the first year, my ads were on sites that I threw up and really gave no attention to. They were tests for various aspects of SEO and social networking. I think I've earned about $1 in the first year under these types of sites. Again, no real focus was given to these sites.
My last site, AskWayne.net was another test of sorts, my first with blogging as the primary tool. That site ran for about 6 months and I slowly learned more about social networking and generated about $7 more in ad revenue.
WayneJohn.com has been through several different ideas and has been built, taken down, rebuilt about 5 times so far. This recent version of the site you are reading now is the culmination of my learning with these tests. This version has been up since late last year, and my AdSense account is up to $15.44. Not bad, but also not enough to really get excited over either. I've had 79 total clicks on my ads and 11,362 page impressions (how many times they have been displayed to users). Many of those were my own hits testing the site as I've slowly been changing it every week.
It's my belief that the longer I blog and the better I get at creating content that people want to read, I'll see those numbers go up with each passing day. If I start now, perhaps 3 years from now I'll be able to make $10 a day. That is my hope at least, and I have no real goals set around this.
How did you put them on your site?
When you create a Google AdSense account, you provide Google with your social security number or tax id. This is required since any money you make is taxable.
There are various styles of ads that you can create with AdSense. Just take a look around my site and you'll see three different styles.
- Right Side - This is a 'wide skyscraper' Ad Unit, text and graphics type ad.
- First Post ads - This is top center and right after the initial post lead in. This is a 468x60 Banner Ad Unit.
- Footer - Right above my footer is a 468x15 Link Unit.
Each ad unit conforms to display ads that Google deems relevant to the content of the page. When you go through the 'Create Ad' wizard within Google AdSense you can specify the type of ad, the dimensions and the color style of each individual ad unit. There are more options, however I don't want to create such a terribly long post on this. If you have questions on this, feel free to ask me.
When you create an ad, Google will supply you with the necessary code to place on your site. After you first create an ad, you may not see anything since Google needs to do some back-end work before they actually start serving up ads. Be patient, they will come.
Side note: In case you were wondering, I run my own soft web site, under my own domain, with software that I have access to all the source code. This gives me complete control over all aspects my blog. Services like Blogger.com and others provide the ability to create a blog, but don't give you complete control over it. Each one of these free blog sites provides an admin interface that will give you some control, but not complete control.
Some thoughts on ads
Ads are a necessary evil and help individuals make some extra income. When you decide to place ads on your site, you should ensure that they do not interfere with the normal, and intended operation of your web site. You want them to be non-intrusive and allow the user to find them, without trying to throw them in their face.
You should try to style the ads so that they appear to be part of you site, and not some glaring sore thumb that doesn't blend into your site. There's something to be said about a clean interface where all the elements flow together and nothing seems obviously added without any thought given to the whole design of the site.
You should also try to avoid placing too many on your site as well. Each ad unit you place will cause the user to wait for the page to go to Google servers to obtain the content for the ad unit. This is why you see some pages that render a little bit of the page, then hang for a few seconds, then suddenly you get the rest of the page. The page was reaching out to another server to get something it needed to place on the page.
You'll notice that I've moved my ads over to the right-hand side of my page. My main reason for this was due to the Amazon ad taking forever long to load and display.
A page will display the contents of the HTML file from left to right, just like reading a book. When I had the ad on the left, my site would hang on the Amazon unit for a few seconds, and then display the rest of the page. This left the user seeing only the header and menu during those few seconds.
By moving the ad over to the right-hand side, the user will see the content all the way up to the Google Ad on the right, and then the Amazon unit will load. This will give the user the content they are looking for immediately, and then the ad will load. I thought that was much better for my visitors and they would appreciate a faster load time for any given page.
Conclusion
There are many aspects of including ads on your site. I've barely scratched the surface here, but I think I've covered some of the basics for anyone that wants to know a little more about them and how I use them, as well as the success, however minimal, I've had so far.
Some of the posts I have in mind for the coming days and weeks will revolve around using FeedBurner.com, and how you can use that to extend your reach with your Ad Sense ad units to potentially make even more money. Subscribe to my blog today to ensure you don't miss out on some excellent ways to make more money with your ads.
Do you use ads on your site? What has been your experience with them, and have you been able to make any money from them? Is there anything here that you have more questions on? Feel free to ask me, I'm here to help.
For more information, you might also read:
Google AdSense Help Center
ProBlogger - When Should I Put Advertising on My Blog?
Blogger.com - How do I put AdSense after my individual blog posts?
Blogger.com - How to put AdSense in your blog's sidebar
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