Like everyone else, I'd like my site to be cash positive (which it is) and have considered AdSense as a revenue source but it almost feels like I'd be selling out the aesthetics of the site for some quick revenue. I also worry about how my members would react to such a dramatic change in the feel and appearance of the site. If my site grows to the size that the revenue would be substantial, then I might give it more consideration. For now though, I'm not sure I want to go that route. Have any of you used AdSense but then stopped because of how it affected either the aesthetics or participation in your site? Do you have a lot of control on where the ads are placed? Sorry for the newb questions, I'm still fairly new to running my own site. Thanks, Sean
As long as you manage your ads and the way they look and feel I think ad sense is great. There are more then just text ads you can go with image and or just small link bar ads which are nice and don't take up much space. So personally I can't say I've had this problem..
the only thing adsense was taking away from my sites where sales lol. once i took them off, my sales skyrocket lol
some studies have shown that advertising makes your site look more professional... For my site I have had to be very careful not to make it look 'spammy'. I also dont display most ads to members. If you do it right, nobody will notice. if you do it wrong, they'll hate you..
Yes it does and then it doesn't. It depends on how you put the ads on your site, how you blend them into the content, how many ads you have on per page, etc. I find that putting ads on a site where you are selling your own products or it is a price comparison site or something is not a really good idea as people will think that if you are selling products and you also have ads then you can't really be making much money to also have to have adsense and will then not purchase from you. But for information / article type sites then I think adsense is fine as longs as you don't over do the ads.
Mine is an information site, and there is nothing sold directly from my site although I do have a link to a cafepress store and an Amazon affiliate link - just got that up two days ago so I don't have an opinion yet. How difficult is it to configure AdSense the way you want?
With adsense you do have customization restrictions and can't remove the "ads by google". You can only really use the ad sizes that they supply and then use any color that you like for the ad units. You do have some customization, but not enough to not make them look like ads, but you can implement them into your site so they look less like ads and more like your own content, which in return will make you gain on the clickthru rate.
You do can resize them, change their CSS even. However, if your business is related to a thing, then the ad sense will display other business related to the same thing... ON Your Website! I would't favour competition.
a quality content site with relevant ads = symbiosis for mutual success did you ever NOT buy or NOT read a global leading magazine such as printed national geographic, newsweek or times ?? they all have one in common - they love and honor and spoil their advertisers by giving the absolute best pages for advertisers and by placing their own value content in all other pages and placements I give all ATF to advertisers - even a double unit side by side and visitors still come to READ what they came for the alternate for surfers would be payperview websites ...
Get yourself an AdSense account an experiment on a few pages with the layout of ads/content and different types of Ads. Ideally, i would stick with text ads, they look less 'in your face' than the image ads. You could always ask your users (if possible?) what they think of them too.