I’m thinking about doing one or both of two things, and would love reactions from The Great Collective Mind:
- Restoring ads (presumably AdWords/AdSense, unless someone knows of a network that pays for impressions rather than clickthroughs) to this blog. When I had them before, there were so few clickthroughs that it was largely wasted noise on the page (I think I earned $20 over the four or five months they were running–and that’s total, not per month). The blog seems to have a lot more readership now, but I still wonder whether library types are likely to click through. Opinions?
- Adding a Google Custom Search box to the Cites & Insights home page, specifically searching C&I itself, so that readers could search across issues and essays. (Hmm. I could also include Walt at Random in the searches, but that might muddy the results.) This would not raise any revenue, but might make the large body of C&I material more useful… (I looked at other free site-index possibilities: They seem to top out at file# or size limits below C&I’s needs, unless you pay an annual fee.) Opinions?
As for other possibilities posts…one of these days. I’m finding them hard to write.
I read the majority of my blogs through RSS feeds, so very rarely go to the blog itself.
I don’t click through on ads I come across on any site on the net, but if it could help you, I could.
I read all blogs in RSS feeds (and if they don’t have complete feeds I generally unsubscribe) and have never clicked on an ad in my life (I’ll consider companies I hear reviewed in blogs, etc, but I don’t trust that everyone who has ads are a legit company I want to do business with – if anything I’m likely to AVOID any company I see an online ad for) – so point being – I have no clue if I’m typical – but if I am, then no ads are not going to work…
One thing I do occasionally do is order by amazon affiliate links… that I could see having more potential…
Both useful comments (keep ’em coming). Michelle: It’s a violation of AdSense/AdWords terms to actually suggest that people click through, and I also think it’s ethically questionable. ygl: I have no intention of changing from complete feeds, and feel somewhat the same way about partial feeds…and I think I’ve only clicked through once.
I think there’s no harm in doing either. If ads help, go for it.
If AdWords/AdSense brings in some revenue, great.
Google Search would be interesting, not least because I’m curious what will get the most hits besides Library 2.0.
There are networks which pay on an impression basis, but check their eligibility requirements (Burst Media, TribalFusion, ValueClick).
For what it is worth, I read my blogs on the feed reader. Like others, I do find partial feeds annoying, and I very rarely will visit a blog’s site from a partial feed. The content has to be extremely compelling. Unsubscribing from a blog with partial feed is not uncommon for me. Having said that, I do visit a blog if I want to see comments for a particular post (or to comment as I do now).
I don’t usually click on ads online. In fact, on Firefox, I have Adblock Plus enabled since I find that sites with too many ads slow down my online surfing. Not that I would think you would overload a site of yours with ads, Walt. If you had ads, it probably would not bother. I might even look at a few, but that is because your site already has a good reputation.
Best, and keep on blogging.
Having heard no negative comments on one of the two thoughts, I’ve added a Google Custom Search Engine to the Cites & Insights home page, which currently searches both C&I and Walt at Random (I may remove the blog later). It works, although the results division is none too pretty and filled with ads that produce revenue only for Google–but since the CSE is free, I’m not complaining.