I write blog articles because it’s enjoyable. I spend weeks finding the perfect sources, wording, images, and tone for each article. Blogging is how I unwind after long hours of programming but it’s also a pretty big investment. I have to pay for hosting and the domain name out of my pocket, not to mention the time I spend doing technical work on the server and web applications as well as writing the blog articles.
Ads allow me to barely break even and make my blogging free, fun, and self-sufficient. Ads generally have a pretty negative connotation. They conjure thoughts of obtrusive flashing banner ads and flash games. There is, however, an alternative which strikes a perfect balance between the site owner, readers, and advertisers. Text Link Ads1 aims to be the nice guy in the “targeted traffic and link popularity” sector. Targeted traffic ad firms help align site owners with advertisers.
Ad Models
There are a few different types of advertising models. The most popular, by far is Google’s pay-per-click model. Just like it sounds, the site owner makes a small amount per each ad click. This doesn’t work for sites like mine where visitors are web-savvy and use adblocking. Text Link Ads works using a different model. Advertisers look through a catalog of pages and chose which sites they’d like to advertise on. Advertisers pay based on the amount of time their ad is displayed on the site owner’s site. The ads are also simple links which are completely unobtrusive and directly related to the site’s content. Not losing money is important for blogging and Text Link Ads helps facilitate this.
- I receive credit if a sign up is made via this link. [↩]
- None Found