Before chronicling each of the best blog advertising networks, I want to take a few moments to explain why I no longer u
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 5:53 am
Before chronicling each of the best blog advertising networks, I want to take a few moments to explain why I no longer use blog advertisements here on my site. As a new blogger and over many years I did run ads on my blog, but as I’ve developed my brand and found different strategies to monetize my content, I’ve phased out that portion of my revenue.
For me, it doesn’t make sense to continue using blog ads, though I used them to generate revenue for several years. These are the three main reasons I no longer use blog ads on my site.
1. Blog Ad Revenue is Low Compared to My Other Sources of Income
Perhaps the biggest reason I don’t use blog ads today, is that they don’t pay as well as other revenue sources I’ve invested in building up over my years of blogging.
The revenue you can generate on blog advertisements is pretty low compared to many other sources for publishers in all different types of blog niches and industries. Even at 400,000 t0 500,000 monthly readers, the most I was earning from my blog advertising network was around $1,500 to $2,000 per month. Now don’t get me wrong, $2,000 a month is very real money and can make a meaningful difference in a person’s monthly budget.
It’s nothing to be disappointed about by any means, but as my overall blog revenue began to grow into the $50,000/mo range a couple of years ago, I could recognize that the return on having blog ads placed throughout my content was much lower than what I was earning compared to affiliate programs I recommend to readers and the sale of my own digital products (like my own blogging courses and blogging books) to name just a few other channels.
2. Blog Ads Can Turn Readers Away from Your Content (Bad UX)
This brings me to the second big reason I don’t run blog advertisements anymore. Blog ads never made up a big portion of my blogging income, so it wasn’t difficult for me to part with—but I also realized that the way I was surfacing ads could sometimes be a turnoff to my readers.
I came to the realization one day that personally, I get annoyed with websites that are littered with blog advertisements. So much so, that I usually leave a site and try to go find my answers elsewhere if there are too many ads on the page.
Most people will put up with a well-placed ad that visually fits in with the overall feeling of your blog, but an article overrun with ads can lead to a high bounce rate and fewer return visitors. So while you’re making some income from your blog ads, you may be losing out on making money from other income sources that pay much higher if you instead invest in optimizing your blog for those channels.
3. Blog Ads Can Slow Down Your Website’s Overall Performance
A third major reason I no longer use blog ads, is that it can really a thailand business mailing list ffect your page load speeds, leading to what can often be a poor experience for readers and much higher bounce rates. When a website uses ads, it can increase the load time considerably—especially when you have multiple ad placements throughout a blog post.
Every blog advertising network you join will function by injecting some code onto your blog (likely onto every page of your site). That naturally makes the pages of your blog load slower than they otherwise would.
When I did a major blog layout redesign recently, a big decision I made was to optimize everything for ultra-fast loading speeds. I wanted there to be absolutely zero performance-related reasons why readers would bounce away from my blog due to the speed at which my content loads for them.
A long load time can also affect your blog’s SEO best practices, also known as Search Engine Optimization. Slow websites don’t rank as well on Google, and I didn’t want to give any reason why my content shouldn’t be served at the top of Google search results.
If you’re concerned about your page load speeds, use Google’s free Lighthouse tool suite to get actionable insights & advice for where you can improve the performance of your blog.
Quick Breakdown of Why I Don’t Use Ads
All of these factors together made it a no-brainer for me to rebuild my blog around an ad-free experience that:
Didn’t translate into a significant loss in overall revenue (when compared to the full picture)
Leads to a better reader experience when consuming my content
Had clear, measurable benefits in terms of speeding up how quickly my website loads
That’s not to say you shouldn’t consider joining the right blog advertising networks, but rather that my decision was an informed one based on years of experience and the gradual growth of my business here.
For me, it doesn’t make sense to continue using blog ads, though I used them to generate revenue for several years. These are the three main reasons I no longer use blog ads on my site.
1. Blog Ad Revenue is Low Compared to My Other Sources of Income
Perhaps the biggest reason I don’t use blog ads today, is that they don’t pay as well as other revenue sources I’ve invested in building up over my years of blogging.
The revenue you can generate on blog advertisements is pretty low compared to many other sources for publishers in all different types of blog niches and industries. Even at 400,000 t0 500,000 monthly readers, the most I was earning from my blog advertising network was around $1,500 to $2,000 per month. Now don’t get me wrong, $2,000 a month is very real money and can make a meaningful difference in a person’s monthly budget.
It’s nothing to be disappointed about by any means, but as my overall blog revenue began to grow into the $50,000/mo range a couple of years ago, I could recognize that the return on having blog ads placed throughout my content was much lower than what I was earning compared to affiliate programs I recommend to readers and the sale of my own digital products (like my own blogging courses and blogging books) to name just a few other channels.
2. Blog Ads Can Turn Readers Away from Your Content (Bad UX)
This brings me to the second big reason I don’t run blog advertisements anymore. Blog ads never made up a big portion of my blogging income, so it wasn’t difficult for me to part with—but I also realized that the way I was surfacing ads could sometimes be a turnoff to my readers.
I came to the realization one day that personally, I get annoyed with websites that are littered with blog advertisements. So much so, that I usually leave a site and try to go find my answers elsewhere if there are too many ads on the page.
Most people will put up with a well-placed ad that visually fits in with the overall feeling of your blog, but an article overrun with ads can lead to a high bounce rate and fewer return visitors. So while you’re making some income from your blog ads, you may be losing out on making money from other income sources that pay much higher if you instead invest in optimizing your blog for those channels.
3. Blog Ads Can Slow Down Your Website’s Overall Performance
A third major reason I no longer use blog ads, is that it can really a thailand business mailing list ffect your page load speeds, leading to what can often be a poor experience for readers and much higher bounce rates. When a website uses ads, it can increase the load time considerably—especially when you have multiple ad placements throughout a blog post.
Every blog advertising network you join will function by injecting some code onto your blog (likely onto every page of your site). That naturally makes the pages of your blog load slower than they otherwise would.
When I did a major blog layout redesign recently, a big decision I made was to optimize everything for ultra-fast loading speeds. I wanted there to be absolutely zero performance-related reasons why readers would bounce away from my blog due to the speed at which my content loads for them.
A long load time can also affect your blog’s SEO best practices, also known as Search Engine Optimization. Slow websites don’t rank as well on Google, and I didn’t want to give any reason why my content shouldn’t be served at the top of Google search results.
If you’re concerned about your page load speeds, use Google’s free Lighthouse tool suite to get actionable insights & advice for where you can improve the performance of your blog.
Quick Breakdown of Why I Don’t Use Ads
All of these factors together made it a no-brainer for me to rebuild my blog around an ad-free experience that:
Didn’t translate into a significant loss in overall revenue (when compared to the full picture)
Leads to a better reader experience when consuming my content
Had clear, measurable benefits in terms of speeding up how quickly my website loads
That’s not to say you shouldn’t consider joining the right blog advertising networks, but rather that my decision was an informed one based on years of experience and the gradual growth of my business here.