Do people really click on those text ads? It’s so obvious that they are advertisements - especially when they are all over the place and in your face! Somehow I feel the image ads are really from the originator (the company offering such deals) even though the companies pay Google. It’s probably psychological.
It used to be about being honest in your blogging. After all, a blog is a diary, albeit an online one. Who makes money from personal diary? Famous people who gets biographies. Now, everyone can have his/her own blog and make money from it. Somehow it just doesn’t feel as honest and pure.
On another note, having more money is always preferably to scrimping for money and worrying where to get the next dosh. And having advertisement in a controlled manner could boast your content by having related info on the same page.
Signing up for Google AdSense used to be strict. Then Google bought Blogspot. So all members of Blogspot can sign up (and approved) for Google AdSense from their templates. However, if you are adding AdSense from Blogspot’s Template, then the choices of types are limited.
I had an ex-colleague branching out to become the next entrepenuer and he offered some really good advices. He also offered, “Give you free space on my site. You just pay me monthly $$.”
“Ahh.. so good?”
“OK.. mm.. then you give me all your readers contact. I give you free! :D “
“What for?!” Selling the contact info…?
“Don’t worry. I just need them to send my new promotions to them.” A lot of companies form partnership like this anyway.
“Thanks but no thanks then.” I preferred to have total control (a delusion because your service provider can always access your info anyway haaha) and privacy for my posts and readers. That’s not to say never sign up ads with Google. Never say never!
“But you can make money online! With ads! Now your blog cannot add ads… I just started and got USD6 already from 2 days!”
“How? From asking your friends to click on the ads?” Because he asked me to click on the ads in his site/blog too.
“Yes!”
That’s unethical but it’s an issue under debate like companies which click on their own ads advertised in Google with the reasoning “I paid Google, why shouldn’t Google give me back some?”
Back to the pure and simple lust to get more money online.
Text ads load faster than image based ads but image based ads are certainly more interesting and visual. The combination of text ads with background image may make loading even longer. Skip animated buttons if your site is full of content and image already. Too much animation in a page is distracting and annoying.
Official websites shouldn’t have more than 1 outsider’s ads. It’s like selling your soul to the advertisement. Unless your company is selling advertisements :)
Google AdSense Ad Formats lists all the ads formats so that you’ll have an idea which ad to use and put in your site/blog.
Where should I place Google ads on my pages? a simple guide on where the hot spots are.
More on Google ads
Yes, people do click on those text ads.. to the tune of a few billion dollars a year for Google :)
It’s not right to get friends to click on those ads. Google will find out sooner or later.
Besides Adsense, there are services to sell text ads to advertisers. Google doesn’t like those services which sell ads for the sake of increasing their PR. They recommend that the nofollow attribute is used.