Blog Ads: How Effective Are They?

Most bloggers use advertisements to gain income from their blogs. If you have been blogging for years and already have established a name and a readership, this might be a very good way to make money. The most common ad provider is Google AdSense. Almost every blog I see while blog hopping has an AdSense installed on their blogs. There are also other good ad providers out there like Nuffnang, Adhitz, Bidvertiser, and the list goes on.

As a new kid on the block, I was wondering if anybody clicks on the ads placed on blogs. There are some blogs I see which has so many ads on them that makes their blog looked like a market or something. I mean, I was thinking whether they notice that these ads just clutter their blogs or not. They look messy. Some even have ads inserted between the title of their blog posts and its contents. I'm aware that MONEY is a BIG THING. But have they really thought of the readers' view? For me, though I'm entertained by their posts, I feel annoyed by these ads most of the time. I mean those in between the title and the contents. I really think they don't look good. "We put ads there to increase the possibility of clicks on the ads." So does that mean accidental clicks?

My first question is: "What makes a visitor or a reader click an ad?"

The worst ad I've ever seen in my entire life was that x-ray ad that shows an as* of a woman when you hover it. I was like, "What the heck is wrong with this world!?" I wasn't even visiting a p*rn site but I already saw that thing. "So things like that are possible to see anywhere then?" Yes, with the help of those ads, even though you didn't search for something like that or visit a p*rn site, you may now break your innocence unintentionally. Okay sorry for over exaggerating on that one.

So let's go back to the question. Do you really click on the ads you see? Well for me, once I visit the blog, I go straight to reading the blog post and ignore the ads. Why? Simply because I have no interest on them. For instance, I'm visiting a blog about innovation and technology, and I see a text ad about dating. I will not click it. It doesn't make sense.

Though there are some blogs where I see good ads on them like Wired or TechCrunch where I click some ads that interests me. But how about those blogs that are not yet bigtime and post Google AdSense on every corner of their blog? I think that doesn't make sense. Well it depends on the purpose of their blog. If they blog just for money, then that's up to them. But for me, their main objective should be checking the readability of their blog. They should first look at the readers' perspective when making a decision where to put ads on their blog. Do they look clean? Aren't they too overcrowded with unrelated texts? Can the readers still read the contents if I put an ad here or there? And so on and so forth...

Well as for me, as what you can see I have Adhitz ads at the end of every article and I'm still deciding whether to keep them or just remove them. As what I can see, the type of ads that are appearing are mainly about 'money making'. I don't know how they decide what type of ads they show. Do they check my blog for keywords?  As of now I only blog about random information and I haven't even blogged about money making that's why I'm wondering why is that the type of ads I see on my blog. However, what disappoints me is that I only had 1 click in ten days:

However my blog is still new and I still need to establish a readership so that's acceptable.

So why not try Google AdSense?

I tried it. Three times I think? I applied for T.H.R.E.E. times. All of them were rejected. Well mainly because my blog is still new. But when I tried to re-apply again, I noticed that my blog has been disabled:

I was confused, where did I go wrong? haha. And I remembered I clicked an ad once. I was really interested on the ad and so I clicked it and then I realized that I just clicked my own ad. XD I was like, "Oh  sh*t!" But what's already clicked, is already clicked. XD So I think that's the reason why my AdSense account has been disabled. Or moreover, banned. haha. I also read articles about how to enable a Google AdSense account that has been disabled but they just made me realize that my AdSense account is dead forever. No hope at all.

Well, that's frustrating. Good thing, there are other options. I also applied for Nuffnang. After 2 weeks, the only thing I saw was that "I serve Nuffnang ads" badge and not really seeing a real ad. So I removed it. XD

So I'm wondering, what type of ads do you want to see here?

Article by Loading-Info