Image courtesy of ww3billard

This is an open discussion of sorts.  I mean, I’m certainly not bringing home the bacon with my ads up to this point, so who am I to try and tell you the ‘right’ way to advertise on your blog.  But I do have a little experience thus far and have certainly seen what doesn’t work.  I also have had the pleasure to see other bloggers find ‘better’ ways of making a few bucks from their blogs.  So let me lay out some of my thoughts and then I’ll pass the torch to you guys for questions, comments and advise.

What we’re indirectly taught to do.

For most new bloggers, it’s a matter of looking at other blogs to see how they should advertise.  You go to the everyday blog and see the random Adsense ads on the sidebars, at the bottom of the posts, and sometimes even IN the posts.  Then you see those neat little 125×125 affiliate ads stacked together in a nice little 2×6 vertical rectangle.  And finally you see the 468×60 banner ad to the right of the blog title in the header of the blog (I just roughly described my own blogs and many others).

So we see this and decide, “Well, if those guys did it, it must be the ‘right’ way to go.”  And off we go to sign up for Adsense and find some affiliates to get those cute buttons.  So you start your blog, put up the ads and wait.  Before too long you end up asking yourself, “WHERE’S THE MONEY!”

If only we could live off of a buck fifty a day.

In a perfect world those pennies per click would be enough to sustain us.  But the fact is, you need some SERIOUS traffic to see much substance from Adsense.  And if not done well, those affiliate ads may only result in a sales commisoin once or twice a month.  So how are we supposed to ‘get paid’ for our hard work and herculean efforts?

I like to look at the traffic situation like this:

Low percentage of add clicks/sales = pennies a day.

Low percentage of add clicks/sales + high traffic = Adequate monetization.

High percentage of add clicks/sales = Adequate monetization.

High percentage of add clicks/sales + high traffic = Excellent monetization!

The point is that we all have the goal of high traffic in mind, but only SOME will get there.  Even then it will generally take some time and patience.  We shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that we must wait until we get 10,000 hits a day to see any real income.  High traffic shouldn’t be ‘the way to monetization’, but instead ‘the way to ENHANCE monetization’.  So, if done correctly, you should be able to make some noticeable income well before you hit those high traffic numbers.  Then, when you hit those high numbers, it’s just icing on the cake.

The problem with the ‘common’ way of advertising.

What we seem to do most of the time just doesn’t work.  Placing ads in those ‘common’ locations and hoping for readers to click on them doesn’t seem like a very mindful way of going about it.

It’s kind of like those items that are sitting on the shelves right where you check out at the grocery store.  You’ve got the candy, the ’stalker’ magazines and those ‘off the wall’ items like the key chain flashlight or the toenail clippers.  Most people just ignore these products, but the occasional shopper will actually pick up an item and add it to their shopping cart.  The whole point is to funnel enough traffic through the lines to make the idea profitable.  If traffic were always light, these kinds of sales would be few and far between.

Advertising for your advertising.

You don’t sell products, you sell advertisements. Once you’ve sold the idea of clicking into an ad on your blog, the person on the receiving site actually sells the product.  If you just place the ads and never actually ’sell’ them, you will never see much fruit for your efforts.

Let’s say you’re going to a seminar to hear a famous blogger talk about how to succeed at blogging.  You go into the building and find your seat.  The talk takes a good 2 hours as the speaker goes through his many points.  The information given was pretty good and you feel like it was time well spent.  On your way out you see a big table full of products next to the main exit.  As you walk by you take a glance.  You see some books on blogging and some software of some kind.  You have no idea whether or not it’s any good, but it does seem related to the seminar in some fashion.  But you just pass it by and walk out the door.

Now let’s replay this same scenario but with a different speaker:

So you come back the next week to find a different speaker with a similar topic on blogging success.  But in this talk you find the speaker referring to products that he’s used to accomplish these ideas he’s preaching.  Once it’s over you head for that same exit, finding the same table with similar products.  But as you glance over you realize that you actually recognize some of the items.  There’s the book that the speaker spoke so highly of and there’s that software that helped him create his blog theme.  Now you start looking through the rest and decide to try out the book he recommended and you make the purchase.

The point is, we should focus on items that WE believe in so we can honestly promote them and point them out to our readers.  If 99% of our readers don’t know anything about the ‘advertisements’ being sold on your blog, then you can guess how many will actually click through to find out.  The fact is, we’ve all become blind to the ads on blogs because they are so common.  But if the author of that blog is not only pointing them out, but promoting their content, you can bet they will instantly become more visible as well as profitable.

So basically what I’m saying is this:

• Choose ads that YOU believe in.
• Make clear to your readers exactly WHAT they are.
• Find ways of pointing to them when relevant.

To me, this makes a lot more sense than just throwing up some Adsense and watching the miscellaneous ads cycle through while hoping for an overly curious visitor to stumble upon its contents.  I know that nobody is telling us to do it this way, it just seems that this is how most of our advertising attempts end up.  And the results are just as common.

So where does Adsense fit in?

I know it has it’s place, but it seems that only in high traffic blogs will you find it paying off.  And if it’s not really doing much for you at the moment, why have it cluttering up your blog?  You could be filling those spaces with other, more useful bits of content.  I’m not saying I really KNOW the answer to this question, I just wanted to lay out my thoughts.

What about selling your own products?

This is certainly a viable option.  Some bloggers feel it’s the ONLY way to go.  The overall consensus seems to be that a mix of this and advertising is the blend for success.  But even if you go this rout you will still be advertising.  You’ll be selling yourself.  Every post you make, in one way or another, becomes a kind of advertisement.

What is your experience as a blogger AND a blog reader?

As stated above, I’m still pretty green on the subject.  As you can see from my blogs, I’m not doing things much different than anyone else.  But I hope to change this as I learn better advertising practices.

So what is YOUR experience?  Have you found success on your blogs in this area?  What are your observations as a ‘blog reader’ that may add to this conversation?