Who clicks your Blog ads?

It's a question not enough regular bloggers ask themselves. Who clicks your Blog ads? Why are they clicking certain ads? Are you targeting the right market with your blog ads?

Seriously, I don't think enough bloggers or marketers take this into account before throwing an ad program on their site. Of the blogs and sites I visit daily, only 1 or 2 have advertisements that appeal to me or would make me click. By my calculations, 80% of the blogs I read are displaying advertisements that I wouldn't be interested in clicking on.

Advertisement clickers fall into the following categories;

'Newbies' they are new to your site and click advertisements because they are lost and can't find anything else interesting.

'Drive-By' users that don't find your website interesting and simply click an advertisement to exit your site and rarely will come back.

'Supporters' these users find your site interesting, visit regularly and will sometimes click advertisements purely out of 'good faith' to reward you for your efforts. Personally I have done this a few times at blog sites where I have read a good article or found their information helpful.

Many of the more experienced readers will rarely click your advertisements. They either subscribe through a feed reader (many feeds don't contain advertisements) or they visit your site and read the content and then leave (many 'regulars' are virtually oblivious to your advertisements, as their eyes are trained to look directly at the content only - making them blind to the ads)

Its different and easier for the major Blogs written by the big boys. The larger and more popular sites are able to sell their ads directly for a monthly or weekly fee. They put the onus on the advertiser to develop a catchy banner that will attract clicks - so the blog owner gets his money and doesn't have to rely on Pay Per Click (PPC).

For upcoming blogs or sites, don't make the mistake of throwing up HTML code from every available advertising company. I strongly resisted going overboard with advertisers, I visit some blogs and sometimes see up to 20 or 30 advertisements all over the place - something which is a massive turn off.

I've also seen some negative comments about Google AdSense by some commentators. Google AdSense is the largest and simplest advertising network, while it has been tarnished by some newbies and spammers alike - the content matching system from Google is unrivaled in my eyes by other networks. AdSense might not pay quite as high as some others, by if placed correctly the chances of users clicking AdSense content is much higher than others in my eyes.

You may have noticed some other advertising additions here on my blog. I investigated both PerPerPost and Smorty for their opportunities to make money from Blog posts. Smorty seemed a little bit small time and took a long time for a response from their administrators. My blog took quite some time to get approved and the available opportunities and payouts weren't extremely high.

Personally, I have seen the PayPerPost program on many impressive blogs, I now understand why. PayPerPost uses a simple interface, they are very active and will offer you many opportunities to make money from reputable products. They also offer the 'Hire Me' direct advertising scheme which you will see on the right hand side of my blog. Anyone can sign-up, pay $10 and have me write a specific post about a desired topic, your blog site or your point of view. An interesting concept, I look forward to seeing how this works out.

I understand many of the readers here are Immediate Edge and TDC participants and focus many of their efforts on affiliate marketing. While affiliate marketing is powerful and brings plenty of high earning potential - the ability of PPC when done right, can turn a steady stream on low effort income.

Just make sure you pick the right advertising program, place them strategically and think about 'who' will be clicking the advertisements - when done right, the reward is obviously much greater. $$

Want to be the first to take advantage of my 'HireMe' option? For $10 you can ask me to review your site or blog, ask me to write about a topic of your choice and either way you secure exposure and a back-link from a PR4 domain. Click on the image below to get started: