There’s an interesting post over at Avalonstar today — and I think it highlights the fallacy behind many blogging “business models” for profit. For those of you who are interested in making a buck with blogging, many “business models” go something like this:
- Write good content
- Try and get some traffic
- Throw up ads
- Pray for cash
Well, as Steve Rubel mentioned some days ago — this sort of thinking is endemic amongst bloggers everywhere, and is even mentioned again on his blog but in a more round-about way. That is, in the a-z of monetizing your blog, the vast majority of suggestions are simply ad networks or involve placing ads in all sorts of places.
Why do I think this is a bunch of hooey? Why do I think that blogs (and businesses) that find themselves in this situation are like houses built on sand?
Its for a few reasons, but its built on a simple premise:
Bloggers don’t click on ads.
Yes, I’m sorry to say, but its true.
The blogosphere is a fairly insular environment. Yes, it can be influential, but most of the people who read blogs have a blog of their own. I suspect that most tech-savvy people do these days; wander over to Federated Media’s advertising card on Digg, and you’ll see a very very interesting breakdown of the kind of demographics you can expect to click on your advertising banners. A significant number of them, suprise, have blogs.
If people who read blogs are, in fact, bloggers themselves, it stands to reason most of them know what those things that populate your own blog are about. They’re not really content. They’re not often helpful or necessarily related to that content. They’re ads for products you may or may not care about.
Of course, there’s also the sentiment that some A-listers feel – and that is that ads are beneath them. They don’t not necessarily care about ads — but actively dislike them.
If you’re a blogger, how many ads are you clicking on? My bet is probably none on purpose (unless you’re trying to game the pay-for-click model … but that’s for another time).
My suspicion is that many ads are most useful for an audience that is NOT technically savvy; its the reason why splogs “work”; not only are they easy to set up, are low cost, and easy populate but the people who get trapped in them are generally non-tech savvy folks.
I can’t remember where I saw it — but there was one blog author who happened to be observing his mother-in-law over her shoulder, who he thought of as being relatively savvy. And she clicked on an ad! To his astonishment, she just thought it was “another link”.
Now, I don’t actually have any statistics for click throughs or anything like that — because I don’t actually have ads on this site. What you’re reading is part of the reason for it. But in conversations with people who get boatloads of traffic to their blog, the conversation rate for that traffic is absolutely dismal. Often far less than 1%.
Now, if this is the case – how do you think Digg is doing? If a frighteningly small percentage of people ever click on the ads — and the type of community you have might actively NOT click on ads (and employ ad blocking scripts, for example), the amount of revenue compared to the amount of traffic coming through is probably miniscule.
If most/ all of the Web2.0 is built on the free + ad supported revenue — in particular bloggers in general, how can anyone expect it to survive?
Afterall, the rise of Overture (remember them?) is because advertisers wised on in the Web1.0 — and they realized page views and impressions weren’t worth anything. Click throughs were. Actual landing on the page — a measure of real “action” was. And it was the failure of that ad-supported model which was one of the reasons for the bubble bursting 10 years ago.
So, what’s a blogger to do? How to maximize the revenue on your blog?
Problogger.net has an idea — but its not the whole picture.
(stay tuned for the next post in this series).
September 8th, 2006 at 12:21 am | Permalink
I think there is elements of truth in what you’re saying - for some blogs.
I totally agree with the basic premise of what you’re writing ‘bloggers don’t click ads’ - however I don’t agree that it’s mainly bloggers who read blogs.
I can only really speak from my own experience but the blogs I’m involved with are read by a much wider audience than just bloggers. My only blog that has a high blogger readership is ProBlogger but my other blogs (on topics such as photography) are read by a much wider audience, largely people surfing the web looking for information on cameras and how to use them.
So - if you’ve got a blog about blogging (like you do here, or like I do at PB) then your arguement holds very true as we have readerships who don’t click (or even see) ads. I’d say this is similar for sites like Digg witch a pretty highly skeptical and tech savvy audience.
However most entrepreneurial blogs are on non blog related niches and are much more likely to attract a less ad-suspicious/avoiding kind of crowd - particularly if they rank well in search engines or are getting linked to by other large websites and sources.
The other thing is that blogs on blogging are often not really suited to advertising because the ads that get served to them by contextual ad systems like AdSense are not really for things that people would be interested in directly.
However on a more product related niche (like cameras) the ads are much more relevant. For example on a page about a Canon XYZ camera (where people are actively searching for information on that very product) if they see an ad for a Canon XYZ camera they’ll be more likely to click it than on Digg where they see an ad for it.
Just a few random thoughts.
September 8th, 2006 at 1:26 am | Permalink
Mr. Rowse — I wasn’t expecting a reply!
Thanks for stopping by.
So, I was actually going to mention a few of the things you did in my _next_ post, but your point is well taken.
Perhaps I ought to have qualifed my blanket statement about “only bloggers read blogs”, to “the people who follow blogs regularly are by and large bloggers”.
The people who arrive at consumer blogs, blogs of an entrepreneurial nature, and so on probably land there through search engines.
Blogs are great, as we all know, for being food for search engines.
I agree — those people who use searches to find information will and can find information on blogs, and may, because of their lack of sophistication, click on ads.
But, I still contend that the vast majority of individuals who follow blogs regularly are technologically savvy enough not to click on ads.
Which is a problem from a revenue point of view.
Of course, the internet is so large that there will always be an influx of people who may not know better, or who simply don’t mind even if they _do_ know.
But the assertion I was trying to make was that ads are not the only road to go; to rely on them soley isn’t the best, highest or most effective use of your marketing time.
Particularly when a blog has lots of recurring traffic, as opposed to search engine traffic.
Thanks again for your thoughts — much appreciated.
Cheers
Tony @ DJI.
September 8th, 2006 at 2:27 am | Permalink
thanks for your response to my response ;-)
I see what you’re saying and still agree - but only in part. I think traditionally blogs were generally read mainly by tech savvy types - however these days I’m not so sure.
I’ll talk about one of my blogs as an example - Digital Photography School (I hope you don’t mind).
It’s a blog giving tips on digital camera use and while it’s a topic with some technical aspects to it’s topic the actual readership is a very non techy audience. I’ve done some informal surveys of it’s readers and less than 5% have blogs - quite a few don’t even know what a blog is (even though they’re reading one).
They traffic comes partly from search engines (only 5-10%) but is largely from other sites and loyal readers. Interestingly they click the ads (even though I don’t have as many ads on the pages as I do on other sites).
This blog is actually pretty typical of more and more blogs trying to make money (I’ve consulted with hundreds of bloggers so I’ve seen similar stories again and again).
Your assertion that ads are not the only way to go is completely correct and I think its a good point to make as many people are one eyed. There are many more ways - each of them suited to different types of blogs.
Having said that - I wouldn’t write off advertising of any kind. For some blogs it works brilliantly - for others it’s hopeless :-)
Good topic - looking forward to your future posts.
September 8th, 2006 at 9:37 am | Permalink
If you know your readership won’t click your ads, sell your reach. Do text based link ads that give the advertiser an SEO boost even if they don’t get any clicks.