World Of Warcraft, WoW Hand Armor

Saturday, March 26, 2011

To Advertise on Your Blog or Not? That is the Question....

I have been around the blogging community for a bit of time now, and as you know, it keeps getting bigger and bigger. I am doing my best to keep giving out quality content for you all to read (I hope you agree). Although with better quality and consistent posts, I am spending more and more time on Alto's Goldish Advice.  If you are reading this as a fellow blogger, you know what I mean. For those that don't take care of a blog, let me explain:



Blogging is not easy, in fact, it's far from it. Each post I make takes quite a bit of time. From start to finish, I am usually just shy of two hours. The writing part isn't an issue, as that is fast (as you can see from other blogs, that is why they don't have the pics, the screenies, the links, etc). It's the extras. Taking screenshots, cutting them down, doing minor Picassa work, hitting up wowhead to link for easier access to more information on "X" item, keeping up with comments, etc. It all adds up, and I know you as my reader doesn't like when I just do a "basic" post. I feel your pain. I don't like to make posts like that as much as you don't like to read them.


Advertisements are something I love to hate. For one, they do generate money (love). In fact, when I am running ads from adsense, chickita, amazon, and a few others, I make $120ish a month, which is a decent amount (but I am not becoming a millionaire in RL from it, and never will).

What I hate about them is, well, seeing them. They have things that make zero sense to my readers (hate), they promote gold selling websites, they advertise for "gaming dating", and they even try to sell "real" gold, or, god forbid, you like something and click on it and get a virus (just happened a few weeks back to another blogger, just trying to help his readers with a deal- I am sure that it was unintentional, but just another reason to stay clear of ads IMO). However, they do add income, that's the reason why I have had them (and why other bloggers do too). But really I just hate looking at them, and I am sure you do as well.


What I am doing is starting up a "donation" tab, basically to keep ads from destroying your viewing pleasure, while still generating some income [for those that are kind enough to use it]. Now I know people are in all different kinds of financial digress with the economy in the shitter most everywhere, so I do not expect everyone to toss a few bucks my way, but even a buck or two helps to the bottom line (To near my current monthly "income" from my blog, it's about 4 bucks a day, so even a little bit covers quite a bit). If you happen to get alot of use out of a post, or if in the past you have made a killing from my advice, show some love and click on the donate button on the "sidebar" just below all the "socializing" circles.

Now before you say "That greedy bastard Alto is just in it for the money", I am not. I think you all know that by now. I enjoy helping people, and the money is a bonus for doing so. The income I gain from my site goes back into a few things, monthly internet fees, promoting my site elsewhere (to help on more info for you guys, by adding more comments on posts, which are becoming a bigger part of my posts each and every day), and a Monster Mean Bean every now and then. =)

Now I am not saying "you must donate to keep my blog going" or anything of that sorts. With ads, I generate around $120ish a month in revenue. I am not making a ton of money by any means. I am hoping with this tab for donations, I might be able to come near to that point without these ads all over the place. Make sense? I hope so.

I am going to try this for a bit and see how it goes, as I have a feeling there are folks out there that will donate. Once again, I am not asking for 100 bucks, 50, or even 20 (although if that's what you want, by all means, I am not saying no). I am asking to just toss a bit my way to help keep these damn ads off my site!

I do want to say thanks ahead of time for your support! Feel free to comment below, as I am interested in how you guys/gals feel about this new change to my site.

9 comments:

Azuriel said... Reply To This Comment

I run zero ads on PVSAH, as far as I know. I say that last part because I always keep Adblocker and NoScript up, so I really wouldn't know if Google sneaks some ads in there anyway. Same deal with your site and other gold blogs - when I happen to read them at work or wherever, the difference is fairly massive, of course.

That said... jesus, $120/month? Makes it very tempting.

I don't view my blogging as work. I write the majority of the posts during my day job, which both helps pass the time and lets me vent gold-talk in a way that doesn't annoy my WoW friends who aren't as big bankers as I am. The screenshots and such definitely consume more time since I have to do that when I get home, but it's still amusement to me. Of course, I only post 2-3 times a week, so with the more frequent bloggers I can see how they may want compensated for grinding out topics everyday.

iiimjiiim said... Reply To This Comment

I decided on Gogle AdSense ads as well as a donate button. I know many reader (myself included often) block ads on websites. This doesn't bother me.

The profit from AdSense has been underwhelming at least so far. I like it as a metric of how the blog is growing though.

I think many of us blog because we love to blog and not as a source of significant income.

I'd love to find a way to help other bloggers generate some revenue but first I'd have to figure it out for myself. :)

Prncesspwn said... Reply To This Comment

I think we had this convo last night on skype. I really hate to see ads on these types of blogs. 1. because I get distracted easily, and it takes me more time to get through a post if something is blinking and catching my eye. But I do now understand the point of them, and get why bloggers put them on their site. And if you can get paid to do something you love, then that makes since too, especially in this type of RL economy. Now if there is a program that can hide adds behind a picture of a funny cartoon, or on of those pictures of big-headed dogs, then I may not mind them as much! LOL

But thx Alto for doing what you do in the blog world. I always enjoy your posts, and as with this post, I learn something knew as well!

Prncess

Vayaz said... Reply To This Comment

Well, I hate ads, too. That's why I decided to not put them on my blog when I first started it.

Sure it's a lot of work, but if it's growing over my head I'd rather take a break (my few readers will understand that) than putting some annoying banners up. When I've got more time, I'll release posts on a more regular basis to compensate for that.

Donations are another thing, but I think that's not quite sufficient for a smaller blog (like mine).

Archangel said... Reply To This Comment

Hi Alto ! First time I comment on your blog. I love your work and I think it has some of the best content out there. It is my strong belief that if the content is valuable, relevant and truly helpful to people, no one will be bothered by ads. Face it, it's a phenomenon of our present culture and we all got used to it. As long as your content is as great as it is now, I say feel free to use ads. The money you get is more than welcome to finance yourself for the time lost writing the blog.

You need to keep in mind something. I think it was Gevlon who discovered on his blog, the a huge chunk of readers, don't even read the comments. The people who bother to read the comments and the ones who consider to leave a comment, are NOT your target audience for the ads. People commenting on your blog and other fellow bloggers (as you could see from the previous comments), they take more or less their own measures against ads. Whether using Adblock and Noscript or simply by just being complete aware that they'll never use an ad. So you see, there's no harm in there - nothing to worry about. This your educated public that doesn't search the internet for “warcraft leveling guide”, but other tens of thousands of people do so, monthly. The need is real and it's out there. Your great content will recommend you to be the authority to point out the real valuable products, related to such search terms, for the rest of the audience.

Write good stuff, place ads in a non invasive manner, promote quality products, and everything will be just fine.

Cheers !

The Gold Queen said... Reply To This Comment

Here's my Adsense earnings statement:

Total estimated earnings £1.35

Not bad, eh, for hours and hours of work *cries on your shoulder*

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

So you are choosing to scrap $120/month and just run a donation button instead?

You know some people come and click ads as their way of helping you out. It's sort of like tipping. Other bloggers especially because they know that single click could award you with as much as $2-3 without coming out of their own pocket.

I highly disagree with the annoyance of ads. We know as readers that they are everywhere and they can be ignored just as easily.

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

=)

Anony,

Yes. For the annoyance factor that I have with other sites having them, it's worth it for me. Although from the comments, I am seeing it doesn't bother others as much as me....

Once again, I am not getting rich by any means with the ads, and there are folks that would click here and there, but most don't know that helps, and I cannot tell or ask them to, as I would lose adsense as a "sponsor" for my site, and lose out all together. See my conundrum there?

To everyone that has donated so far,

Thank you very much, I really appreciate your generosity! I was extremely surprised at the response! Thanks again for supporting the site! =)

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

Arch,

Thanks for the props mang! I really need to just do a generic post on that (reading comments), as most times, there is quite a bit of more information that is located there....

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