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.

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.

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.