I'm really thinking hard about taking the ads off this blog.
My initial goals were to add some color, perk things up, get some logo-legitimacy, maybe make some money and learn how ads work.
I think I've accomplished at least some of those things, so maybe it's time to pull the ads.
I think I have learned some things and confirmed something that I suspected, which is that except for some special circumstances people do not read a webpage and click from the page to buy something.
Reading a webpage can be compared to reading a magazine. You don't see an ad, stop reading the magazine and go out and buy whatever is being advertised.
The secret world of web "affiliates" is no longer a secret to me. An affliate is someone who has some sort of web presence, or contributes some content to the web and is allowed to put advertisements on their web pages.
The secret part of it is that unlike a magazine or a newspaper where the content provider would be paid a fee for placing an ad, the web affiliate is allowed to place ads and paid if someone clicks thru and buys something.
Basically what this means is that affliates are paid nothing and the business getting the ad space on affliates web pages gets free advertising (except for the big money they pay the affliate conglomerates that track click thru rates etc.)
There are three problems with the "click-thru and buy" ad based revenue model -
(a) Generally people do not jump from reading something to buying something
(b) People ignore or become blind to banner ads.
(c) The tracking cookies used by the affliate conglomerates are easily removed by common spyware removal tools...which means the affliate conglomerates have no real idea how ads on individual pages perform.
A more equitable model would be similar to a magazine or newspaper where the advertiser pays for the ad based on number of viewers. This is the way high volume websites make money from ads. From what I gather if you have fewer than 100,000 or so viewers a month these types of programs are not available.
I'm mulling over whether I want to have ads just for the color and interest...or if I should speed up the loading of my page and clean it up by getting rid of all or the majority of the ads.
It's a tough call for me, with some pros and cons.
Ads slow down loading of the page (but encourage people to get broadband...so that's a plus).
What I think of as logo-legitimacy could just as easily be considered logo-illegimacy by some of the less shopping-minded among us.
On the plus side an internet ad is not intrusive in the way of a radio or TV advertisement, that you have to listen to or watch.
I kind of like the way all those little ads over there on the left look and no one has to read them. I also like the fact that I can put cool names and logos for well known companies like Air France, British Airways, The Wall Street Journal, Google, Amazon, Macy's, Fujitsu, Sony, etc. on my pages.
Plus it keeps me busy learning new things playing around with the ad layout and content.
I have a suspicion that there may be a fairly high percentage of people who shy away when they see lots of words and not enough colorful pictures. If I want those people to read my words I need some colorful pictures. Some of these colorful pictures can be in the form of nicely designed logos and ads. Graphic-designers put a fair amount of work into creating logos and graphics for the sole purpose of making them eye-appealing, why not take advantage of their work?
Maybe I'll keep them for now.
