Putting Banner Ads in your blog sidebar - Your Thoughts?

[Alex Fraiser]

Hey guys,

I just got back from vacation, and when I went to check in on my blog I noticed that all of my paid banner slots have expired. So basically, I had those "Advertise Here" blocks on my blog. The banners were those commonly used 125x125 banner blocks and they were placed in my sidebar.

Now, my blog is a pretty new blog. It's about 5 months old now, and while I have sold a few ads in the past on it, none of the advertisers made recurring payments (as in went back to my blog and renewed their ad banner for another month).

Since my blog is new, there are a variety of things I am trying to build upon. The thing I am focusing on building is my community at the blog. The community, being people who comment on my blog, people who subscribe to it, people who vote in my poll, basically anyone who visits my blog. I am trying to build a better audience; a better community.

So, what does all of that have to do with putting ads on your blog? I think that new bloggers need to do some waiting before they put banner ads in their sidebar. I do think that the way you position your ads in your sidebar does have an affect on growing your community. And the way it effects it is not a positive one.

The way I find ads to be negative on your blog for building your community are:

• Ads clog up the sidebar
  Of all the content you can put into your sidebar, those banner ads take up space in your sidebar. It will make your scroll bar smaller and require more scrolling to get to the bottom of the page, plus the images can make load time slower.
• They are usually above your most important sidebar information
  There are a lot of things you can put in your sidebar, such as your most popular posts, recent posts, subscription box, etc. When you put ads in your sidebar, they push that important information down and will be less visible for people to see.

It's all about what your readers can see. If they see you have a list of your popular posts above the fold* of your website then you will have a higher chance of someone visiting your older posts and staying on your blog longer right?

* In Web Design, the fold is the point of your website where the users have to start scrolling down the page to see the rest of the content.

Another thing I see so much is that people replace their "Advertise Here" banners with affiliate product banners. I think that is a waste of space, and it doesn't make you look good. Not only do you not look good to potential advertisers, but it can give off the appearance that one of your highest priorities on your blog is to make money.

I wrote an article about this on my blog today, and now I want to hear some opinions on how putting ads in your blogs sidebar can have a negative impact on how you build your community on your blog. I really think that those ad squares are bad for your blog if you don't have that community built yet on your blog. If you wish to read my full article, you can visit my blog in my signature.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see some opinions here!

[ALC]

125x125 ads generally don't convert very well unless you are a high traffic blog with well targeted ads. I'd stick to 160x600, 300x250, 250x250 style ads otherwise.

[WhoJayBe]

Also it depends on where your traffic is coming from. Most other bloggers like you won't click on those ads anyways, it's mainly search engine traffic that would click on those. So if you're getting a lot of SE traffic, I'd go for it... why not!

[blogaboutnothin]

You need to focus on SEO to rank high in the search engine, and the money will be flowing.

[Alex Fraiser]

Originally Posted by ALC

125x125 ads generally don't convert very well unless you are a high traffic blog with well targeted ads. I'd stick to 160x600, 300x250, 250x250 style ads otherwise.

Exactly, if you don't have a community to get clicks from, or to get banner ads purchased or even to click your affiliate banners - then I feel like those ads are just killing space that can hold much more valuable information!

Originally Posted by WhoJayBe

Also it depends on where your traffic is coming from. Most other bloggers like you won't click on those ads anyways, it's mainly search engine traffic that would click on those. So if you're getting a lot of SE traffic, I'd go for it... why not!

Good point, that's something I didn't consider to write or even really know about! Learn something new every day I guess.

[Indyan]

I tried them and removed them in favour of a single adsense block. Atleast I make more than 5 bucks from that spot every month.