Use Ads to Monetize Your Website

With the recent advent of low-impact and low-effort online advertising models, it has become very easy to get advertising on your Web site. Whether or not you decide to place third-party ads will likely depend on how willing you are to surrender space, or “real estate,” on your site. It is also important to consider the potential impact that ads can have on your overall traffic.

If you are running a non-commerce site, such as an informational site or a blog, including ads can be a great way to defray the costs of maintaining the site. If your visitor traffic is high enough, you could potentially even make money. (In fact, there are a growing number of people whose sole income is derived from their personal blogs.)

The same is true of a commerce site, but some important issues need to be considered: First, are you able to integrate the ads without compromising the aesthetics of the site? This is not an insurmountable task, but may require rethinking the site’s layout. Assuming the ads can be effectively integrated into the page design, there remains the issue of whether or not ads will detract from your users’ experience. Are the ads likely to drive away visitors who feel that their experience is degraded by the ads (alienation)? Or, conversely, are the ads more appealing than what your site has to offer (cannibalization)? The ads must be effective without being obtrusive.

The best way to measure the compatibility of the ads is also the riskiest: running them, testing them, and monitoring your own traffic as well as the traffic of the ads themselves. Cannibalization can be seen when your site’s traffic or sales stagnate or drop while traffic to the ads increases. Fixing this may be a simple matter of redesigning the page layout or moving the ad placement. Avoiding cannibalization is tricky, and may actually become an argument against having ads on your site altogether. However, it may be also be a helpful wake-up call to improve your site design and your product offerings.