Should you have Ads on your blog?

If so, what should they be?

What are your opinions on ads? How do you feel about affiliate links where the blogger makes money recommending a product? What do you think is an appropriate ad or form of monetization for a blog. Do you feel a make money online blog should be treated the same as another niche? I’d like to know how you feel about these questions.

Courtney Tuttle asked the question in a recent post "Is selling ads evil?"

This is in response to some bloggers who do not have ads on their blogs and do not plan to. The comments on the post also go into not only having ads, but what is really appropriate for a blog, especially in the make money online blogging niche. I really suggest you read his post and the comments as the bloggers in question made comments also.

Is Selling Ads Evil? | Internet Marketing | Strategy & Services To me, in a perfect world, we would all only make money through affiliate offers of products and services we have tried and endorse ourselves on all of our sites. I would like to hope that people trust me even though I sell ads, I certainly would never point you guys in a post toward a product that I didn’t use

Do you think running ads on a blog is appropriate?

I would like to say that I agree with Court’s point that having ads is not evil. I also agree that I would much rather see ads than see a blog end because the owner loses interest. If you can make a good income from ads, I would think the interest would last more.

So many of us have been taught that "Money is the root of all evil."

That statement is actually a misquote of the Bible. The truthful term is "The love of money is the root of all evil." Misquoting God is another source of evil. It worked on Eve and seems have continued working on many people today. We pay heavily for listening to those misquotes.

I find that people without money seem to love it more than those who have what they need and want.

They are focused on what they do not have that others have. It can become an obsession. Where am I going to get the rent for next week? How am I going to pay that bill? I deserve that new car as much as he does. Or even worse, "The rich are not paying their fair share." It becomes covetousness. Beware when you start hearing the phrase "It’s not fair!"

So what ads should you have?

One problem with a blog is there is a given endorsement by you just for showing an ad. It can affect the respect people will give you. Take online dating services for example. There are a lot of  sleazy ads and services. I have seen some ads on blogs that make me wonder what kind of ethics the blogger has.

It is worse for the make money online blogging niche.

There are a lot of products out there that are overpriced and over-hyped. There are some outright scams. There are shady practices. This can really have an impact on your name or brand. I think there was a bit of embarrassment from those who promoted the $9.95 Joel Comm product that found their readers felt tricked. This can happen real easy and it may even be out of your control once you have promoted it. Even if it seem like a good product to you.

Should you promote something you have not tried?

This is really the sticky question. If you run AdSense, it would be difficult for you to even try the products (you would even get penalized clicking your links to see what the product was). Yet, for many niches, AdSense on of the best ways to monetize and no one thinks there is anything wrong with using it. There are lots of products that could be advertised that you might not be able to try for several reasons.

Sometimes, you’ll still have problems without making money from a product.

Some people want advice just so they can argue with your suggestions.

I saw this a lot in the photography business.

I hated when someone would ask for advice. It was almost always the same thing. I would be told someone at the counter wanted advice on what camera to buy. I was very busy. We did not sell cameras so there was no financial gain for me (other than being able to show them better pictures when they came in for processing).

I would give the advice asked for, and they would literally argue with me.

My advice was based on what I used. It was bases on seeing millions of photos and finding out what ones were taken with what cameras. Still, these idiots would tell me that this camera had such and such features and so and so said it was good. They wanted to by a camera make I knew was junk (most of those camera makers still make junk). Why, did they ask me then? They asked me, I did not come to them. I had work to do instead of stand there arguing.

I see this happen with bloggers.

They offer advice or help, much of it very good. You will see a comment on how this post was not up to the bloggers normal standards and they are going to unsubscribe, never return, or hack the blog. At least I have not had to face that here yet, I am no expert yet. I have seen it though. I bet a lot more of these types of comments are deleted before we see them.

You may face the same problem of your credibility if you have ads or not.

Anytime you give advice, you put yourself up to criticism. It does not matter if you make money from it or not. I think you might as well make money from your advise. I say put the ad or affiliate link up.

What about products you do not have experience with?

I am planning a post about hosting. While I can speak from experience about the hosts I use, what about hosts others I trust recommend? Should I not even mention or link to them? If I mention them, is it wrong to give an affiliate link and make money from it even though I do not have experience with them? They are going to pay the same if they choose the host from my link or not. What if things change at a host I do recommend from experience and things go bad?

What about generic text ads like AdSense?

Do you feel that there is endorsement by the site they are on? Besides the question of are they ugly or do they disturb the reader or site layout. Do you feel they are dishonest in any way. Do you think the average Internet surfer feels they are part of the site?

I think that there are some differences.

I think there can be a difference between endorsing a product and showing an ad for it. I also think that the blogger or Internet marketer also needs to look at each situation and make sure that he is not misleading readers into thinking an ad or link is an endorsement when it is not. I think an endorsement is something that takes even more care than an ad. It is a personal recommendation. It should be treated like advice to a friend.

What are your opinions?

No arguments please.:)

Choose the right domain name for your online business!

How do you know you have chosen the right domain name for your blog or website?

There are a few good rules you should always follow. There are also lots of examples of successful blogs or websites that break those rules. Still, following the rules will help make things easier for you to get your site to rank well in the search engines. Keep in mind that even when I give examples of rule breaking domains, these are the exceptions and you will be better off following the rules.

Let’s get started.

Always, always get a .com domain!

This is probably the single most important rule I can think of. Chances are, if you try to work on a non .com domain, all you are doing is advertising for the owner of the .com. You may be tempted to save money with a .info (I was) but after talking to those who have done some research, .info’s seem to rank lower in the SE’s (search engines) than .com’s.

Darren at problogger.net spent years trying to get the .com domain for Problogger. Now that he finally has it, it is not easy to switch the domain over to the .com without taking a hit from the search engines. At least now Darren can redirect the traffic from the .com that he was losing back to his original domain.

An example of another successful non .com domain would be del.icio.us.

del.icio.us is a popular social bookmarking site. Probably one of the few well known .us domains. Of course, if you have the option of a .edu or .gov domain those might make an exception, but most people will automatically put a .com on the end of a domain if they try to type it in. Avoid the chance and stick with a .com over any local or other type of domain.

Try to have a niche related keyword in the domain.

While not as important to SEO anymore, it may still help you rank a bit better if you have a popular keyword for your niche in your title. Also, Google bold faces the keyword if it is in the domain. Also, when someone sees the keyword in the domain itself, they know that site is likely to be about the subject they are searching for. Every little bit helps.

Keep is short and simple.

Shorter will be easier to remember, write down, and spell. Avoid too many words. Avoid words that are easy to misspell. We all want success, but can everyone spell it? Is that with one or two C’s and S’s?

Check your spelling.

I remember a demonstration video where the author did a search for possible domains and purchased a domain before realizing it was misspelled. Double check your spelling before you click the purchase button (triple check if you spell like me). Google is a play on the word googol. Sometimes spelling may not be that important.

Don’t use hyphens or dashes.

These are nearly impossible to tell someone unless they read the domain name. Maybe you will run a radio advertisement or be on a podcast someday. It is really inconvenient to explain dashes by voice. While the dashes or hyphens can make it easier to read the domain in a listing, you are better off just avoiding them.

Avoid trademarked names in your domain.

Even if you are planning to do an affiliate program for a company, avoid using and trademarked names in your domain. Nearly all affiliates will have a list of words that you cannot use in a domain if you wish to advertise their product. Even if you do get permission from someone at the company remember the person that replaces him or her may not feel the same. Don’t become lawyer bait. Find a related generic term. That way if the Zune never takes off your mp3 player site can still talk about iPods.

Avoid using free domain name search tools.

More than once I have read complaints from someone who used one of these services only to find that the domain names they checked were suddenly taken. I understand that there are some sites that apparently use the searches people do to find potential domains to purchase for themselves. Stick with the domain search tools provided by your registrar.

If you have the time and money, a used domain can have advantages.

A domain that has already been used can give your site or blog some advantages from the start. It may already have some page rank associated with it. It may have links pointing to it. It may still have some traffic coming to it. This can help your site hit the ground already running. It could also have been banned or delisted considered spam or associated with bad subject material that will prevent the domain from becoming successful at any level. If you go this route, be careful and check everything you can about the domain first.

Stick with well-known reliable domain registrars.

It will do you no good to save a few dollars on your domain if you cannot renew it because the registrar is messed up. This has happened to me. I also know someone who lost hundreds of domains and thousands of dollars in monthly income after a registrar failed to renew domains that he had renewed.

There are 3 registrars that I trust.

GoDaddy.com , eNom, and NameCheap. GoDaddy is the best known. Avoid purchasing anything other than the domain and whois protection. They will try to sell you everything under the sun. Also, I rarely hear good things about their hosting. I find eNom expensive. I do recommend NameCheap. They have been reliable and very affordable. The GoDaddy link is an affiliate link. This site is registered with GoDaddy, I have one or two with eNom and the rest are now with NameCheap. Personally, I find NameCheap to be much easier to buy from than GoDaddy.

The most important rule is to get your own domain.

Any domain is better than no domain. Use your name (unless your last name is difficult to spell like mine). If you are putting your traditional business online, using the company’s name would be good, or using part of the company’s name.

There are lots of examples of very successful blogs and sites that do not necessarily follow the rules I have given. Many popular blogs are on domain names of the author’s name. There is whatever.com that has become a million dollar business for a teenage girl. However, these recommendations should help your site get more traffic from the SE’s.