Please don’t. You’ve got a very nice looking site the way it is and google ads will just look like shit. Unless you have a very large readership, there just isn’t much point in filling your site up with crap.
how long do you suggest waiting before looking into adsense.. rough number of readers?
I guess it all depends on your objectives and your priorities. According to the benchmarking info available from Google Analytics, the average personal website only attracts about 2 readers a day. That’s not going to generate much in the way of ad revenue. This is pure opinion and speculation on my part, but my guess is that you need hundreds of readers per day just to cover your hosting, and thousands of readers to generate any significant revenue. Unless you’ve got a traffic ranking in the top 100,000, I wouldn’t bother with ads. If I am wrong, I am very curious to hear what others have to say.
Even with traffic of a few hundred visitors a day, unobtrusive AdSense ads can generate enough revenue to pay the cost of hosting. It probably won’t compensate you for your time, but it is nicer than having to spend $100 or so a year out of pocket.
I have a couple of small AdSense elements inserted in my site (www.sindark.com) and I don’t think they bother readers much. That being said, other people clearly feel differently about the value of a small flow of income for very little effort and minimal changes to your page.
Milan
Even with traffic of a few hundred visitors a day, unobtrusive AdSense ads can generate enough revenue to pay the cost of hosting.
The reality is that only a tiny number of websites generate traffic measured in hundreds of visitors per day. Most are lucky to have a hundred visits per month.
A good rule of thumb is probably to assume that you will earn far less per hour of work creating content for AdSense than you would working for minimum wage.
That being said, if you would be creating the content anyhow, it can be a nice bonus.
well I’m actually using “mint” and analytics for traffic tracking.. I get around 200 unique a day.. I don’t want that to drop due to adsense.. My intentions for this blog were to just spread some joy.. After having seen some posts on “adsense cheques” around blogs.. It’s tempted me..
@inspiredidiot,
If you’re really getting 200 a day you’re doing a great job. Just about every post I’ve seen about making money with adsense is on a blog about making money with adsense. It’s all crap designed to lure you to their sites so they can make money. Keep spreading the joy, and forgive me if I’m the ultimate skeptic.
I’m using this http://www.whydowork.com/blog/whydowork-adsense-plugin/ for my website. Average 70 visitor per day and still growing. Adsense is low but I think can cover my hosting and domain cost.
The hits have been ranging from 150-200.. I havn’t had it up for time so there’s not a really good way of telling.. My primary intentions are not to make money out of the blog but the thought of having some money come through with a little adsense is tempting.. Adsense never hurt anyones eyes did it?
Are you talking about hits or unique visits? Hits are a meaningless measure.
We run just one simple line of AdSense just below our header on our forums at http://ApplianceJunk.com/forums along with some in the sidebar of our wordpress blog at http://ApplianceJunk.com/blog
Using Google Analytics to track visitors we get between 300-500 unique visitors a day at this time. Our forums are just over a year old and our blog has only been online for a short time.
Your AdSense balance needs to reach $100 before they sends you a check. I can not give much details, but I will say this. We do get a check every month.
@chris.
200 Unique A Day.
Umm.. I wan’t to wait till it’s roughly 500 Unique a day.. I would probably get some income and I’m assuming it wouldn’t look that bad.. =\
PLEASE PLEASE don’t just put ads where-ever you want…..look carefully where it will COMPLIMENT your site…..I personally have extreme hate for sites who abuse the internet and overly do their sites with ads…have you thought about text link ads?
Remember, compliment not abuse.
Well, I didn’t bother with adsense but rather just put up a donation button. =]
