Brandon Harper said:

 

I originally put ads on my site just to cover hosting costs, but overall I actually turn a small profit using adsense (and a dedicated virtual server, a dns service, etc), but small enough not to matter much-- mostly I just want to not have to pay out of pocket for a server & hosting.

You might just need to do some more SEO/ad placement research, as well as find ways to increase your traffic. Keep in mind who your audience is too-- I wouldn't be surprised to see that most people are using ad blocking software on your various sites (as the ones I've seen are mostly CF related content but I haven't looked around much in all honesty), etc. Typically the content I get the most clicks on have nothing to do with technology.

Anyhow, just my personal experiences-- I'm far from making the big bucks or being an expert on the subject. :)

 

Aaron Lynch said:

 

Obviously there are many factors to this challenge. But I guess the constraints that need to be considered in this case are 1) don't overwhelm the site with ads and 2) don't get in the way of the users content.

I have done some reading on ad placement, and it really boils down to the best place to put ads is right "in the way" (IMO).

I am not as concerned with the traffic, as we feel 1 and 2 above will help a lot in that area. Also, we aren't trying to pay for the server off of one site in this instance.

 

Michael Dinowitz said:

 

When Raymond and I started out using AdSense we traded notes a bit and we still do. We both see a nice (not job replacing) return from AdSense, but the time put in is quite a bit. I run a LOT of SEO for HoF/FA and the result has been very good, at least on Google. I'd be happy to help out and talk both on and off of the blog/list/whatever.

The first thing I suggest is to look at your source code and see what can be cleaned up there. Moving CSS to linked style sheets (you can have more than 1 per page) is a start.
Don't go super crazy with CSS as a well written table can actually be less code than a CSS layout.
Think about pieces of your site that are statically placed and think of moving them somewhere else and positioning them absolutely (look at HoF to see what I mean).
Look into real SES urls. The ones that are used as a default are good, but real ones can really give you a boost (look at FA to see what I mean)
remember to place internal links in articles
RSS!!!!! Get a feed out there with your content to as many places as you can.
Think about using AdWords to draw people to your site (I do)
Think about what space your using and what your not using. BlogCFC wastes a LOT of space which can be used for additional content and the like. over 95% of my visitors have a 1024x768 resolution so I think that any content area smaller than that is a waste. I've also found that almost 50% of my site visitors have a 1024 wide (or better) screen so I provide non-critical content in that extra area. If you have the space, use it, even if the content is light.
Think about alternate types of ads on your site. HoF has a single text line ad on top that links to relevant ads but is totally unobtrusive. We then have a single bar ad between two pieces of content on the page. Finally, we may have a block on the bottom of the page if the page is long enough. If not, we either have nothing or a google mozilla announcement (which is worthless money wise but still nice to have). The chances of someone clicking on one of those ads is about 1%, which is a nice click rate.
Finally, make use of things like Google Analytics and Sitemaps. The more you use them, the more you're reporting site changes to Google or asking Google to spider your site. This leads to more people knowing what content you have, more visits and hopefully more clicks.
I can go on and on (and will in the winter issue of the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update) but that's more than enough for anyone to raise their revenue.
Drop me a line if you want to chat more on it.

 

Joshua Cyr said:

 

I am far from an expert here, but have done a bit of research. I found a few categories.

1) Contextual Ads. Google is one, but there are others. Many of the others offer better ratios, but they don't have as many people competing for ads and so the money isn't there from what I found.

2) Product Sales Affiliate Systems. Amazon is a good example. Link to a book, dvd, etc and get 4% or 6%. I have made code to gather ASIN (amazons ID) for products based on keywrod and work that into my display for pages. Lots of affiliate systems out there including itunes, etc. Find something that may match the blog category and go from there? IE category = tech then maybe show certain affiliate ads vs category = music show others. Amazon has a contextual system now too, though in testing it a while ago I found it a little stupid. It may have gotten better.

3) Paid Links. Text-Ad-Links has a system that people can buy links on blogs. You get a cut of the action. Poplular blogs will make good money, not popular ones will probably get no interest. This is often done to pump up the pagerank of the linked to site, and not for actual traffic.

4) Direct advertising. Sell someone a specific ad on a site. People still do it. Some for branding less than click through.

Bottom line is that Google and Amazon have been the only two to really generate any money. I have read reports that say a 2% click through rate is good. I have found that to be the case for myself. I am somewhere between 1-2% depending on the day and site I am analyzing. The affiliate systems are the ones I am excited about most. Anything that continues to pay dividends after the first month are great for residual income. Maybe you could sell your customers visitorville.com service and get cut for each one?

 

Joshua Cyr said:

 

I should clarify that the examples for each category were not the only ones I have tried, but just an example of each. There are many players in each area.

 

Michael Dinowitz said:

 

I've found that affiliate and product sales links are almost worthless in comparison to a proper contextual ad. Just my experience, but I can probably do better if I tried (and I should). :)

Actually, it's text-link-ads and their ColdFusion code kind of bites (which they admit to). I've rewritten it into a cached object and have to send it to them. Looks nice and is a flat rate rather than a per click, but I need to see more. (text-ad-links is a scam site)

Google also provides site based ads as part of AdSense and you can see FusionReactor ads on a number of high traffic sites. Getting a direct deal is better but takes more time and maintenance.

2% is considered good. Ouch, I'm below average at 1%.

 

Chris Rutherford said:

 

Google adsense is the best way you can monetize the spot. One thing you guys could do is on the "photo gallery" page, you could put a plug for google's picasso (if you log into your adsense you will see the referral buttons). If someone downloads picasso and installs it, you get $2.00. You can also do this for firefox, and a lot of people make a lot of money by using the text firefox referral button. Though I don't see anywhere on the spot that would be good for that.

I think the low CTR rates of the spot can be contributed to the lack of ability to change the ads colors and all. I'm willing to make a donation if you guys want to try to create a way for the ad color to be edited by the user. The problem is that like on my site, for example, the blue text doesn't blend well with the site and is obviously an ad. If the links were black, there would be a higher CTR as it wouldn't trigger ad blindness... Another example is netnoob.instantspot.com... That blog had 7,405 unique visits in the last 7 days and only produced $6.20. The ads stand out quite a bit and create ad blindness.

This month's stats for netnoob:
10,213     16     0.16%     $0.72     $7.30
With customizable ads the CTR should jump to about 1%-2%

Investing in allowing your users to optimise your ads will result in higher CTR's for you and dave, and also the users.

An ad with a higher CTR that you guys might consider making an option is an ad that is within their post when it is viewed alone. Those ad's have a really high CTR, but this wouldn't really help you guys.

Either way Chris Add and I will be making a donation soon because we both know we burned up some bandwidth this month...

 

Michael Dinowitz said:

 

Ad color is part of the javascript code and can be edited easily. I'll try to write up a guide to it on Blog of Fusion when I get back from Judith's checkup.

 

Chris Rutherford said:

 

Forgot to mention, if instantspot took the bottom ad position, instead of the right ad position, the CTR would be a LOT higher than the single ad on the right. You could do this until you were getting more bloggers and could afford to take only take the right side ad.

The bottom ad has the highest CTR next to an ad block positioned within the first paragraph. (nestled at the top of the article to the left or right as can be seen here: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/09/23/prob... )... Most people use a larger one than the one in this example, but I like the use of a small single ad

Here is a link to google's ad placement heat map: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer....
doesn't apply to all sites but will give you an idea of what general placements work best.

 

Aaron Lynch said:

 

First off, thanks for all the replies!

Secondly, changing the adsense colors is by no means a mystery to me...in fact, it wouldn't be too hard for us to expose the ability for the user to alter those colors in his/her InstantSpot control panel. We actually discussed that idea, and at the time, decided not to open that up in an effort to deter abuse (making all the colors the same as the background or something).

 

Aaron Lynch said:

 

Oh, I should say also that, we aren't totally closed to the idea of letting the user alter those colors...we just didn't do it at the time. Thoughts?

 

Chris Rutherford said:

 

Def. let the users change the ad colors. think about it... you allow the user to optimise your ads (and theirs) for you so that you both make more money. The ads will be better blended and clicks will increase. As your users increase, it will be important to have all of that ad real estate performing better.

 

Aaron Lynch said:

 

Chris, we have decided to address this issue. We agree that the ads should blend better with the site. I think we are probably going to automate the color choices based off of the user's css changes. Hopefully we can get to it soon.

 

Aaron Lynch said:

 

For anyone wondering, we placed a small link block at the bottom position of each InstantSpot member site. It has made a pretty noticeable difference in our CTR.

see here for the heat map:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer....

Thanks for posting that Chris!