Make Money Blogging – Adsense is a Bad Choice
If you are like most aspiring bloggers, you wouldn’t mind make a few bucks from the fruits of your efforts. Many bloggers start on Blogger which makes incorporating adsense into your template super easy and seems like an effortless and effective way to monetize your blog.
Wrong! It is nearly effortless but it is hardly effective, at least for most blogs.
Monetization Basics
I don’t think anyone will argue that in order to effectively monetize your blog, your choice of method needs to match your readers. You need to provide something that they are looking for in order to get them interested enough to either click your ad or make a purchase of some sort.
If you have a blog about rock bands of the 90s then chances are if you elect to try to sell an internet marketing course then you likely will be met with little success. The product doesn’t match the readers interest in the slightest and they will pay them absolutely no attention.
Adsense seems to provide a perfect solution in that they are contextual. The ads will try very hard to match the content on the site and they typically do a pretty good job of accomplishing this. It appears that this would make a good choice right?
Wrong….again.
Readers and Searchers
The issue that few are aware of unless they experiment is that there are two types of readers out there essentially and these two types have very different needs and very different habits.
The Reader – Readers are here for enjoyment. They like your writing style or they enjoy reading what you have to say. Let’s say you are running a humor blog. Your readers are there to read your latest funny story, anecdote or joke. They most likely have a number of humor blogs that they stop by to check out daily or weekly.
They have no purpose for being there other than to check out what you have to say and they aren’t likely to click OUT on an adsense ad. They will most likely click out on the next blog in their reader or bookmark list.
The Searcher – Searchers are looking for something specifically. They have a question and they need an answer. They arrived at your blog via Google with a question in mind. If your site answers their question then they are happy and satisfied and may simply leave. If your site has adsense ads that appear to offer up a better answer then they may very likely click out on one in search of “the answer.”
The searcher is the kind of reader you want if you intend to monetize via adsense. This presents a challenge as most blogs do not get the majority of traffic from search engines. If yours does then you may be a good candidate for adsense.
The Conundrum
You might have picked up on a couple of issues that you are facing as well. If your site is too good, if it offers the answer to the searchers question, then they will be less likely to click out on an adsense ad. If you write half baked posts with no answers to the questions your readers seek then you will get no repeat traffic or RSS subscribers.
The two types of readers work against each other. In order to maximize adsense income you need to attract readers with questions and NOT answer them. In order to attract RSS subscribers and grow your traffic then you want to write thorough and well thought out posts so that readers will return.
What do you do?
Conclusion
Most blog readers are there for entertainment. They are not searching for answers but rather enjoy what you write and like interacting on your site. They aren’t very likely to click out on an adsense ad and therefore adsense is essentially a waste of space.
You would likely be much better off to try and work in some affiliate offers for products that are related to your blogs main theme. If you combine those with some private ad sales and sponsored reviews then you are likely to make much more money from this than adsense.
It isn’t hopeless and if you are hell bent on adsense then you will still garner a click or two here or there. If that’s ok with your goals then great but if you need or WANT to make more money from your blog than a few bucks a week then you can do a LOT better than adsense.
Adsense makes a great monetization outlet for niche sites, but a terrible one for most blogs. Anyone have a different opinion?
AdSense is great to get going, but it’s definitely not the best answer for anything. I guess it’s kind of like asking people a question do you want to do something easy or right? Well AdSense is easy, but there is something else out there that is right.
You just need to follow-up this post with what is best.
Kyle James’s last blog post..Links of the Week April 4th, 2008
I have decided to eliminate adsense from my blogs – it is not worth the crappy pay out – so now I am doing just affiliates – this seems to make more sense. I made $3 on my blog this way last month – a lot better than $0 from adsense!
Chelle’s last blog post..Saturday Morning?
ya i totally agree with u .
its not for publishers its a source for making money only for Google
ajay’s last blog post..Windows 7 in 2009 : Gates Said
You have 1/2 the equation right. Adsense is designed to work with organic search visitors. No surprise really given who developed it. It is a waste of time to use it on a site that you promote by means of social referral ranging from StumbleUpon to Twitter to EntreCard.
But, here’s the problem. These social visitors, aka readers, are unlikely to buy from affiliate ads either. This is particularly true of dealdotcom, reverse funnel and the 10-20 or so ads that every “make money online” blogger proudly displays in their same old 125×125 ad spots. Thus it’s best to do something really off-the-wall different with affiliate ads or to sell monthly ad space to other bloggers and do paid reviews.
Frank C’s last blog post..Adding an eBay Sniplets to a WordPress Blog
I think one reason why Adsense don’t work is that people read blogs nowadays as a form as entertainment like you have pointed out. The name of bloggers seems to play a major part in marketing and the readers are wanting interaction with the bloggers rather than digging deeper and deeper for information.
Wayne Liew’s last blog post..Blogosphere Summary Week #7
@Frank C – Sorry but I have to disagree with you. Bloggers will definitely buy affiliate marketing offers if you find the right ones to present to them. Case in point…..I made 3 sales via DealDotCom yesterday alone.
I also had two premium theme commissions last week.
Now can I retire off of these? No but the more this blog grows then the more income will generate from affiliate marketing. If you combine all of these smalll revenue channels will add up to some decent money if you can get good at it.
As for the ads that you are railing on….5 of the banners that are seen either on the sidebar or above the post are purchased banners. They aren’t my affiliate banners, they are paid advertising spots. Is it worth having them there? Hell yeah…although I do agree with you somewhat that most readers don’t buy off these buttons. A post about the product will be what sells it.
Well in my case I guess I should use adsense in my blogs because I dont really want to make money (for the moment) or making a living out of it I just want to have the money to pay for the domain and the hosting service.
bennie’s last blog post..MP3 Rocket – Un buen programa P2P
You have made some very good points about why you say Adsense is basically useless. You are correct there because I have managed to make much more money via other methods on my blogs but I still have Adsense up. I have not given up on it and it brings in a steady trickle of revenue.
Gerri’s last blog post..What I Did To Win a Prize
Traffics does not determine how much you earn from adsense,we can’t put all the eggs into one basket.Make money blogging is not only from adsense ,there are many choices down the road.
Felex Tan’s last blog post..Why blogging is not Right for YOU?
agree there are many other choice. but for me adsense is still needed since I target my reader is “the searcher type”..
mr.eims’s last blog post..[Don’t have to get it perfect, just get it going]
Although I don’t disagree with the points you make, there are niche blogs that do very well with Adsense just as websites do, so long as they get the traffic. Blogging and marketing is not a good niche, but more popular topics such as travel, health, sports and gadgets which have a good sized advertiser base and product names to target, can be quite profitable with adsense (so long as they get traffic)
The thing about blogs is it’s hard for a basic blogger to configure a blog to target adsense ads that people will be tempted to click on. Having an adsense theme or using an adsense plugin will help. If you then add very specific keywords, your ads will be better than the general run of the mill ads that general keywords get you.
So although you make some valid points about people reading v people searching and neither being happy with the mix, I think it depends on other factors besides these. By researching for good seo keywords and using them with well configured themes and /or plugins designed to get the best from adsense, it is possible to better the odds.
I have dropped a link to a page with some links to adsense themes and plugins. It’s a shameless link drop and feel free to delete it if you wish, it’s just there to save some people a bit of a search for what I’m talking about.
http://richnicheblogging.com/Niche_Blogging_With_Adsense.html
Julies last blog post..Matt Cutts Video On Meta Description Seo
@Julie – sure a niche specific blog is a very different animal than the type of blog I am referring to so maybe I should have been more clear. When I refer to blogs I am talking about MMO blogs specifically or the typical what my kids did today kind of blog.
If you are building a niche site and happen to use WP as your CMS then Adsense can work great.
I agree that AdSense is a first step in making real money with any web site or blog. It is also a good first building block but it should not be looked at as the end all be all of web monetization. As with any good plan there has to be a first step or a beginning to the process. With out a true working knowledge of how advertising works and how to attract true click through traffic no system will work. With that said AdSense is a good teaching and learning tool. The program is forgiving in many ways and will teach someone while they work on the craft of blogging as they advance and figure out if they want to proceed on to the next step. I have posted a quick over view of AdSense here that works for a first time user or someone just getting into the blogging or web world.
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