Saturday, April 15, 2006

A note on advertising & donations

Those of you who are super-observant may have noticed that an ad just appeared "above the fold." I've had a small number of Google and Amazon ads pretty much since day one, but they were always kind of buried way down in the sidebar and though I've had some clicks, I have have yet to actually receive a check from them. I haven't tried to do anything about this, and I have even turned down a couple of offers for paid sponsorship, because my main purpose in writing this blog is to have fun talking about money, not to make money. I also think it gets annoying to have to navigate around lots of ad clutter on blogs and I don't want to inflict that on my readers.
But I've decided to do a little experiment to see what difference it might make to have one visible ad at the top of the page, since I think this blog gets enough traffic to theoretically generate some small amount of income, and it occurred to me that it could be one way to increase my donations to charity. Maybe one little ad isn't enough to make a difference, but I thought it was worth a try.
So don't be alarmed-- I promise that this blog will never turn into an hodgepodge of invasive advertising, and any ad revenue I do collect will be donated to worthy causes. (If you would like to suggest any deserving organizations, please leave a comment.)

P.S. Above stated intention not to make money shall be considered null and void in the event of receiving book deal, TV talk show deal, offer for rights to life story for adaptation in film or Broadway musical, etc...

3 comments:

SEO Speaker said...

It's about time you include an ad :) Since you are going to the trouble Google adsense has a good overview on placement and blending the ads in. Good luck on your efforts!

Anonymous said...

You might find you'll have even more success with a top banner, though I understand that a lot of bloggers not really in it for the money aren't fond of using those. Another thing to try would be to blend the ad background with that of your blog (white on white). Right now, while your ad matches your general color scheme, it doesn't blend in well with the rest of your sidebar.

Still, different people have different success with different ad units, so my advice is always to experiment. Leave up a set of ads for a week and see how they do. Then try a different layout. Keep alternating layouts and styles until you find the one that you like best.

SEO Speaker said...

So, I guess what Nick and I are saying in a diplomatic sort of way...your current ad needs some love!