Tom Doyle

I was on Damien Mulley’s blog yesterday (as I do quite regularly) when I spotted an article that he had posted on The Vulgarities of Web Ads. I agree with a lot of what he says in terms of how some of the advertising options available to advertisers are pretty poor and in some cases very obtrusive. 

However, I can’t understand his reasons for suggesting that those that use ads on their website are money grabbing scroungers. He backs this up with a terrible analargy, “If a friend called over for a cup of tea, I wouldn’t subject them to a charge to use the bathroom, or free usage in return for listening to an ad while they use the bathroom.”

My first response to that is that no, you wouldn’t charge your friends a cent. Why would you? They’re your mates……..

But would you let over 700 strangers into your house on a daily basis?

If you did, would you cover the charge for the upkeep of the facilities?

Well Damien’s blog has on average more than 700 unique strangers per day. These visitors are finding his site looking for things like “broadband ireland” to “arcade fire dublin”. These people also come for free information. Judging by his return visits, never come back.

On top of that, he suggests that the visitor is being charged to view the website. But that is so far from the truth. It costs them nothing to read your blog and it costs them nothing to click on an ad.

He went on to change his stance on it and suggest that you were in fact costing the the reader time, because they have to navigate around the ads. Another lame point in my opinion. How hard is it to spot an advert and move your eye away from it? It would take like all of a split second. Hardly costing them a lot of time. They could blink and lose that time……

He also asks, “Do you walk around dressed like a formula 1 driver with logos all over you?”. My response to that was that if I was in contact with as many people as his blog on a daily basis, I’d certainly consider wearing a t-shirt with a logo on it if I was likely to make a few bob.

Anyway, this article isn’t about Damien Mulley’s post, it’s about posing that question. Is advertising on personal blogs right or wrong?

The pros are:

1. It costs money to pay for hosting. With popular blogs, the traffic is likely to cost them a lot of bandwidth, which costs money.
2. It takes the bloggers time to come up with articles that are likely to provide valuable and free information
3. It’s passive income – the blogger is likely to enjoy writing their blog, so making money for doing something they love is only a good thing.

Cons are:

1. Articles being written or tailored for a monetary return – Suggested by Damien, I can definitely see a lot of people doing this – but that’s if their only aim with their blog is to make money. Those that aren’t interested in making money and doing it for the love or writing are unlikely to do this.
2. It makes you look cheap? Maybe if you are a company, I could agree. But with a personal blog, people are so used to personal websites with ads that it’s hardly going to affect their opinion.

In my opinion, anyone that isn’t monetising their blog, is missing an opportunity to make a few extra bob for doing nothing that impacts on their typical daily life.

What do you think??