Saturday, June 18, 2005

Feedback time, please.

At this point I have decided to try advertising at this site. It is supposed to be relevant advertising. My site is very mundane, daily life sort of thing, and oriented to how we live. It supposes that we share interests. Adsense assures me I can select the sort of advertising that we will display. I could use your help.

Any feed back should tell if the ad is intrusive: does it obliterate any of the blog?

Is is relevant to the day's topic? Is it misleading, such as bait and switch?

Is it in good taste? This is extremely important to me.

I will not be able to investigate the advertising myself, as it will invalidate the contract. In other words, I cannot click on the ads from my site. Seems like it will be all I can do to keep the family from clicking on them, at first, out of idle curiosity.

My personal links will not show advertising until I am certain that it's good stuff. And if I don't like the advertising, if it is too intrusive or at all offensive, I am killing it. I could certainly use the income, but, hey, I gotta be me. And so do my sites.

Thanks for your help.

pb
Little Pond

2 comments:

Darlene said...

No, the ads don’t have to be intrusive! I suggest you go to my site for an example. There are two on the front page, which you’ll see as soon as you get there. Then if you go to the sidebar under “Previous Posts,” and click on the categories there, each page that comes up will display another two different ads. I think banners and towers are intrusive (even though they supposedly generate more usage), which is why I chose smaller-sized ones, and only two per page. Google also gives you an option of background colors and placement (in middle; in sidebar; top, middle, bottom, etc.). I chose colors that complement the color of my site, and put them in the side towards the top. (They remind us that if you put them on the bottom, they could be overlooked.) They give us a “form” to fill out so we can make all our choices, then a code that we put into our template.

Whether or not it obliterates any of the blog depends on where you decide to place your ads. But you can change the color, size or placement any time if you want. Just go back and change your options, they'll give you a new code, and you can replace your existing code in your template. You can also choose what type of rating of ads you want, so you can be assured they’ll be in good taste, but I doubt if Google would give you any that aren’t, anyway.

Since we only get a percentage of each ad, we definitely only receive pennies per click, and in my experience, people are more interested in what I’ve written and the comments I’ve received than in the ads. But I’ve been more than thrilled with the ads they’ve given me. They definitely are relevant because they match the content of my site, and often the ads change throughout the day. I’m pretty sure it’s okay if you click on some of the ads to see what appears on them when you first get them, including new ones as they come up. (They just don’t want indiscreet clicking for the sake of generating money, because that isn’t fair to Google or the advertisers themselves, who pay to be placed on our sites.) But mine have been so informative, the photos they’ve included have been fabulous, and some of the items are truly unique. (I’ve been tempted to buy items from some of my own ads, and probably at some point will!) Makes sense, because all shoppers want to see what’s available and what something will cost. And our “visitors” in no way have to fear that they’ll get any spam in return.

Hope I don’t sound like a “walking Google ad sponsor,” but I’ve been there; done that. So I hope my experience and knowledge will be of help to you. I say go ahead and try it! If you have any further questions, feel free to e-mail me (you’ll find it at my site). All my best, and Good Luck!

pb said...

Thanks Darlene,
You have no idea what your comment means to me. When I arose this morning, I found "Meet Sexy etc" and was scared to death, but they've already cycled to others. I need a little more patience, I guess.
Bless you.

pb
Little Pond