I see it over and over again. I visit a blog and I read some interesting content, but the experience is cheapened by this cardinal sin. Advertising. More specifically Google Adsense advertising.
I know what the blog owners are thinking. Heck, I spend some time and effort writing this blog, I may as well make a few dollars while I am at it. And the simplest way to do this is to sign up with Google Adsense. It is quick and easy, so what harm could there be? There are three problems with this approach:
- You make very little money unless you have huge traffic. I have some Adsense ads running on a couple of my personal blogs and I have made less than $10 over the past six months. With a targeted niche and well placed ads you might be able to earn $5-$10 per thousand visitors to your blog. So unless you have massive traffic you will likely be disappointed in your earnings.
- It cheapens your blog. Your blog should be an informational and promotional resource for your company. It should make money for your company in an indirect way–by building your reputation with your customers and prospects.
- You don’t know what ads will appear on your blog. With Google Adsense you have some editorial control, you can filter out ads from your direct competitors for example, but you still don’t know exactly what ads will appear. And if you don’t use these filters you can end up running competitors ads on your blog.
Now, I have nothing against Google Adsense, it has its place and as I said I use it on some personal blogs. If you really want to make money from a blog I recommend creating a different blog other than your main business blog. This way, you can keep your main blog professional and you can still satisfy your desire to make money blogging. Just make sure you don’t neglect your main blog.
Your small business blog will always be more successful if you resist the temptation to have ads, particularly Google Adsense ads. To convert casual visitors into regular readers you need to make a favorable first impression. If your site is cluttered with unattractive ads, you are making this task more difficult.
