Over-Monetization of Your Blog?

Many bloggers start their professional blogging venture by searching for all the revenue sources for their blogs. Placing Ads on blogs is the most common revenue source for beginner bloggers like me. However, have you ever visited a site with banners occupying most of the page or ad units placed all over the page?

Feeling irritated by ads that distract you from the content you are after? Yes, that may just be the feelings of your visitors when you place too many ads on your blog. There is a term for this, "over-monetization". Most beginners thought that having more Ad units will lead to higher probability of clicks. Statistically speaking, it may be true. Realistically, probably not. Why?

You may get a click from the visitor on his first visit. However, he may feel irritated by the overcrowding ad units and decides not to return again. This is what I term as "poor reader experience". What you want is actually consistent traffic, not one-time visits.

In the beginning, I was guilty of over-monetization too. After realizing that I have been receiving one-time visits with no returning visitors, I decided to work on that. And one possible reason I've come up with is poor reader experience!

That is why I've revamped my blog design a little recently, restricting only to a maximum of 4 units on a page. Google Adsense allows a maximum of 3 per page, while I add an Advertlets unit in the sidebar. Now even I myself feels more comfortable reading through my blog.

If you think that your poor traffic is due to over-monetization of your blog, why not take a step back and try reducing the number of ad units? You may just get a pleasant surprise with the sudden soar in readership.

P.S. I am still experimenting this technique. A follow up report will be posted after one month. Wish me luck!