photo credit: adria.richards
As you may have noticed I have dropped Google Adsense from this blog. This was making me about $30 a month but I’ve decided to drop it for a couple of reasons. The first is that I don’t like the amount of dependence my blog has on Google. This blog actually makes more from other income sources than it does from Google Adsense. Overall though, my online income is about 50% Adsense, 50% everything else. Google is my main source of traffic as well.
The second reason is because I can’t control what ads are displayed. I want you to be able to trust the ads that appear here. Any ads or links that I put in my sidebar will be for products or services that I have personal experience with and personally recommend. I plan to have my own products for sale here later this year and I want readers to trust what I offer them.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to make money. It just isn’t my primary purpose for writing this blog. I still have Adsense on my other blog Bank Bonuses which is all about making money. This blog is my personal blog though and I feel that its content reflects on me as a person. I will try to make up the $30 a month I’m losing by dropping Adsense. Perhaps having my affiliate links featured in the Adsense spot will lead to more conversions. I’ll also experiment with other affiliate products that I think would be a good fit for this site.
This is a timely post.
I have been thinking the same thing but for some reason have been reluctant to take the next step.
I think we all get quite scared of the consequences of not having Adsense on our pages but you are right, if you want to maintain control then there isn’t really anything to consider.
I run quite a few blogs, some earn more on adsense but the majority don’t.
I think it’s time for me to sit down and review my blogs.
Good post, has helped me make my mind up!
Thanks
Charlie
Hi Andy,
Thanks for sharing your revenue information. It is great to hear the experiences of real bloggers.
I am curious why you are going the route of ads and affiliate programs? Aren’t there more reliable ways to build a long term business online?
The main reason I’ve been using ads and affiliate programs to make money online is because those were the easiest ways to implement and the ones I’m most familiar with. As I said in the post I eventually will be making money from my own products. I think ads and affiliate programs are the most common revenue earners for blogs but I’d be interested in hearing of other ways to make money from my blog.
If you want more details on my revenue information I post my total income every month and I break it down into categories including one for online income. Just select expense/income tracking from the categories menu in the sidebar and you can view all my expense and income posts.
I’ve only had my blog running for a few months, and haven’t really had the traffic to see any Adsense revenue. I can’t really make a judgment, but I do see where it can be counterproductive to keeping readers. The truth is, when I read a blog post, I usually ignore the ads, anyway.