Ads Create Credibility

February 28th, 2007 | Revenue Generation, Traffic Generation

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Last week, I urged you not to monetize your blog too early. In the comments, though, Nika made a great point: ads can often lend the impression of credibility to your site.

Here’s an example. Let’s say I’m starting a personal finance site.

Day 1, I can go over to Commission Junction and get me a big Wall Street Journal advertisement to put on my blog. If you then came to my blog and saw that I had good content, a good design, and that the WSJ was advertising on my site, wouldn’t that inspire some confidence?

So Nika’s right: one ad from a big-name sponsor might indeed be a great idea to have right out of the gate. And for sharing that, here’s a link to her food blog: Nika’s Culinaria. She’s got some great content and some gorgeous pictures, so go over and take a look.

Comments

  • nika
    nika

    February 28, 2007 at
    8:08 am

    Shane: Many thanks for the link.

    I am glad that observation resonated for you. Its validation for this idea, something I have thought for some time and always wondered if it was just my own personal bias.

    One thing I didnt like about auto-context ads like adsense is that sometimes the ads were not relevant and I had ads that were distracting me and my readers. I want laser focus on my niche (food) not an ad that is selling timeshares in Bulgaria. Nothing wrong with timeshares or Bulgaria, they would go great on a travel blog.

    If you are a new blogger looking to monetize I say do a “luxury surf” in your niche. Look for the most fantastic products that relate to your topic (mine would be things like Dean and Deluca or foie gras producers or organic kobe beef producers, etc) and see if those companies have affiliate programs. Then use those to generate ads and hopefully, some day, income. That way you have ads that YOU can use and enjoy, that your incoming search engine surfers might like, and will hopefully reinforce your niche presense/feel. Make sense?

    Being new means there is a HUGE learning curve so new bloggers many have a hard time juggling all of this or even realizing that there are options or alternatives to just about anything you do in blogging.


     

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