I like sharing links on Twitter, I’ve been trying to find a good way of doing that without overloading people, and think I’ve found the solution in Buffer App, which allows me to buffer my tweets. As a result of that, I’m tweeting a lot more links. What I find though, is that I’m reading a lot of articles that I like, but which I wouldn’t want to share, not because of the content, but because they’re so surrounded by links.
A good example is this post by Ann Smarty on the MakeUseOf blog. It’s a good post that could have pointed many readers at 2 nice addons, but I’m hesitant to share it, because of the ridiculous ads. I don’t like in-content ads, but I can live with one of them. Having 3 of them though, 1 annoyingly situated just below the title so I had to search for the intro, is just too much and bordering on the plain spammy.
So, when you’re adding ads to your site, consider this: they might make me money, but do they prevent me from making more money? If so, don’t add those ads!
When I started my blog, I made the decision to not include ads, even text-only AdSense ads. My philosophy is that my blog is an ad, an ad for my thoughts and artistic works. I don’t other people’s messages watering down mine.
Joost,
That example has a lot in common with typical MFA sites, I would never share that!
Also I love Buffer App, I would also recommend queued.at
I agree. I use ads on my site, but I personally try to avoid such ads disrupting flow. I try to keep my headers clean. Bit no-no in my opinion: No ads between the title and the body. Nevermind linking to the site…I find that in an experiment I did a long time ago, articles that had ads just after the title resulted in a horrible bounce rate. I figure that many people just skip it if they are first presented with an ad.
Keep the articles clean…ads can go to the sidebar or the footer.
I’m a big fan of Buffer. I’ve had great success with it thus far and can’t wait to see where they take it.
I’ve been using buffer for a few weeks now, can’t wait for the facebook version to be released!
P.S I Recommend the Firefox addon for Buffer!
Some of the bigger niche aggregators, for example NewsNow, will not consider your site if there are ads within the content.
You should give timely.is a shot. It scans your last 200 tweets and then schedules the tweet for “maximum engagement”
I have ads on my blog too but only on the sidebar and bottom of posts… after the content and before the comments – I think this is the reasonable way of doing this, without disrupting the main purpose you have a blog for.
AdBlock Plus is all I use. For sharing sake though, I don’t think I even get past the point of reading a story when ads are interspersed within posts like that. It is very distracting, especially text based ads which could appear to look like content.
I just started using Buffer. Have not seen any difference though yet.
Just a thought. I do a lot of my reading by connecting Twitter to Flipboard. This means, that – most of the time – no ads contained in the sidebar(s) are shown when reading a post (you have to open the website to see the ads). Maybe that’s the reason why bloggers integrate adds into the flow of a post.
Again, just a thought.
Thanks so much for this post! I was one of the bloggers who consistently used in-text ads, but I never realized there was a bigger picture that I wasn’t considering. After looking at the measly earnings I was getting from that type of advertising, I decided to ditch it to see if possibly better opportunities would arise. :)
I’ve honestly seen worse. Quality content surrounded by pure crap of ads. Wish people would consolidate their ad space, and let readers actually get through the content