Will the dip in earnings be worth it?
Google AdSense has long been a simple way to monetize websites.
It goes something like this:
- Create a website with articles on a topic.
- Add some required pages like a privacy policy and a contact form.
- Sign up for AdSense and get the website approved.
- Install the Google code so that the ads display.
- Profit!
Back in my blog's heyday, I earned $600+ in one month with AdSense.
One glorious day, I earned nearly $100. Ninety-nine dollars and change.
Then came Auto Ads.
For most of the time I've written on my blog, I placed the ads myself where it made sense.
Eventually, Google offered Auto Ads. One piece of code at the top of the page, and Google would populate the rest of the page.
It was pretty easy, and there were ways to tune what kinds of ads showed and how many. I could even exclude regions where I didn't want ads showing up.
Still, it was a lot of ads showing up.
Even when I dialed down the frequency of the ads, there were still a lot of them, and they tended to dominate the webpage.
Several in the article, one on each side, one on the bottom, and interstitial vignette ads that took up the whole page.
Putting myself in the shoes of a reader, I'd either navigate away from the page, or turn on an ad blocker.
Not a good user experience.
Going “old school” and putting one ad block up
A couple of days ago, I turned off Auto Ads and placed a single ad unit directly below the post title.
I chose this spot because most of the income came from in-article ads. To see this, I logged into AdSense, checked Reports, and chose Ad Format for the breakdown variable.
The pages are a lot cleaner, and Google speed tests seem to be better as well. (I still need to tweak for mobile but that's later.)
Less is more.
Even though I'm all but guaranteed to take an income hit by removing most of the ads, I'm looking to make what remains more prominent.
Namely, my newsletter sign-up forms, and perhaps some YouTube videos from my channel to encourage more views there.
I'm hoping that the improved performance of the site will result in certain pages being ranked higher, which means more organic traffic. And with less visual competition from the ads, the elements that remain will get more attention and more response.
Favoring profitability over monetization
Matt Brady made the distinction between monetization and profitability clear for me.
I suspect the main reason why I've had only flashes of success making money online was because I was overly focused on monetization (changing views into money) rather than profitability (earning more than I lay out).
By reducing the number of ads on my pages, I'm dialing down the direct monetization of those pages. Fewer ads means fewer views and fewer clicks.
What I'm trading this for is increased attention on my sign-up form where I can explain the transformation I'm offering for people who choose to let me into their inbox.
That's ultimately where the greater reward lies.
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm John and I encourage entrepreneurship in people, including myself.
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Header photo by Aedrian Salazar on Unsplash