It's no secret that many visitors dislike a site filled with ads and banners, etc. Has anyone tried the strategy of having no ads on their website until the site gained popularity. Then after a steady stream of traffic and backlinks were acquired, that is when you decided to show the ads. I wonder if this is a good strategy. Anyone tried it before? How did it turn out for you?
Although it sounds like a good idea in principle, it probably will not work well for aright-knit community site. You'd seriously annoy loyal users if you suddenly (or gradually) started showing more and more ads.
John Chow writes in his eBook: "The majority of your readership won't care that you have advertising on your blog. Don't pay too much attention to the whiners." I personally use AdSense on my blog that gets 200+ visitors daily. I barely earn anything though. Tried removing them but no difference in traffic etc. And as he wrote in the eBook, whiners may be vocal but the majority of users simply don't care if they see a nicely blended text ad somewhere.
Are you talking about AdSense? I sort of done that, but it depends on the site and the demographic I expect to use it. For example, on some blogs I'll put ads up right away, and sometimes make them ugly and obvious. You'd be surprised how well that works for some demographics. With others, I have site-wide ads that are non-obtrusive and place more ads later (there's an AdSense placement by date plugin for Wordpress that works great) on older content that is getting organic traffic from search engines. I don't place ads within posts on the front page or in RSS feeds, only on individual posts with an extra ad for the ones I know are getting traffic from search engines. This strategy keeps most of the ads out of the way of my loyal readers. The two sites in my sig show examples of each.
I'm the one who extremely hates AdSense. And I'm the one who started a site without ads. It is a good strategy if you want to gain some credibility at the start. Especially don't use AdSense, but if, don't make visitors click on the ads by mistake. You all know what I'm saying. Just don't ruin your site with that. AdSense is a credibility killer since everyone is making websites just because of the money.
I'm kind of using it. For a lot of sites, the point is to make money from the ads or affiliate links, so the site is built around the ads. But for some sites, I'd rather build up a loyal user base, so I go without ads. (Partially because no one clicks them in the first place...)
I think that is a bad idea not to have ads then show ads You get everyone coming to your website then you throw advertising on it and people will feel like you have "sold out" etc etc. But if you blend your advertising no one will care
I honestly dont think it makes much of a difference. Might as well drop the ads while you´re there creating the site.
I have tried it. In fact one of my most popular sites had no advertising at all. We have a customer focus pledge in the footer of most pages that sais: "Members enjoy a spam free environment with no advertising or third party sales pitches." It has worked wonders, and keeps the site clean. A formidable business should not need to run ads. But gentle use of PPC integrated well with the content probably won't put anyone off.
Yes, it is better to hold off with a bunch of ads until a site starts getting traffic. It certainly won't hurt the sites earnings since it needs traffic anyways to earn.
A majority of sites online have ads. If your site really offers some good content then people will want to visit it anyway no matter if you have ads or not on your website. I think it is better to just have ads on it first so that they don't get a shock later on in your sites life. All you have to do is not go overboard like some sites.
I think a community site or portal without ads is not the right one. It's like the crack and cheat websites without porn isn't the right one. Imagine askmen.com or reuters.com without ads. They will look just a plain websites and won't give any serious feelings. Also, it depend much about the ad. No one want's to see "you are the winner" ads... Ads can make your site look more professional if you choose the right ones.
What an excellent comment! That is very true. I think If you have some big brand names advertising on your site, your audience will associate you with the quality or status of those brands.
It's depend on the type of sites - for real product related sites - banner is more effective. Imagine having to sell your auction base entirely on text!