It’s all about intention, innit?

Hey Stu,

A blog is either written for you (it’s there as a vehicle to earn you money), or it’s there for your readers (a vehicle to get your words read by them).

In between is that grey area where most blogs are, but grey is ok. osworld is one of them as there actually is quite a lot of monetisation on it - just that most of it is very subtle - and it doesn’t impact on the readability of the blog (in an overall sense) - if that makes sense.

Really monetisation was secondary in my thoughts on that post - I simply wanted to show the first impression of a blog based upon what a typical person would see. I reckon that 1024*768 using firefox is pretty representative of average joe - I reckon you’d agree on that.

First impressions do count for something, I was interested to see the stark difference between someone like problogger (v. good - 3rd in that list of pictures) and natewhitehill (awful, 6th in the list)…I wonder of those two, who earns the most from their blog? Note that the picture list is in no particular of “goodness”…

Anyway, I think we both know that problogger earns more - and yet his blog is that much more “friendly” (based on MY parameters ;)) - going back to monetisation (as that’s something that you are interested in) - is monetisation key on a front page of any given blog (where 1st impressions count)…

Worth thinking about??

Gary, I could remove all the ads off my site, have perfect layout etc and still make nowhere near the money Darren does, for one good reason:

Traffic.

Darrens alexa rank sits somewhere in the 2,000’s. (Nate Whitehill sits around 67,000 - not a whole lot better than you or I). I would expect Darren to make more money purely based on that one factor.

What you say about grey areas is true, I guess it depends on the shade of grey you have chosen, but I still think it’s possible to provide a positive user experience whilst placing things other than content and navigation above the fold.

A blog is either written for you (it’s there as a vehicle to earn you money), or it’s there for your readers (a vehicle to get your words read by them).

I have to disagree with you there though Gary. I write my blog for me, and my readers. My first consideration is the readers, as without them it’s all a rather pointless exercise. I choose to (try) to monetize the site (albeit in a half-arsed manner), as I put time and love into it, I’d like to make some return on that investment.

The funny thing is that I have another blog which makes about five times what this one does, but I just really enjoy writing here.

I must admit though that my efforts to seriously monetize this blog has always been half-hearted, as I know that the readers of this kind of blog are very sensitive to this kind of thing.

I’m just rambling now, so I’ll shut up, just leave you with saying that I tried to find the monetization on your site, and was hard pressed to find it. Nice job!

Yeah, I agree with everything you said.

I wonder if probloggers traffic is quite so high, because his blog is laid out without too much “in your face” stuff. Could be, could be not, who knows. Keep the readers happy and the compound effect goes on and on…

I dunno about it all - perhaps we all tend to overthink some situations when it might be more beneficial to not think at all. I think

It’s important to have a good site navigation. Sometimes it will be the factor who takes me from occasional reader to fervent reader.

Need to be sure that there is good content under the category though.

Is navigation that important in a blog? Once I’ve subscribed I generally read most stuff directly through the feed reader.. If I do follow the link, it will either be to look at the latest posts or do a site search.

Content is king for blogs…

Previously bloggers wrote for their love for writing, now a days they are writing for some cheap jerk who pays them few dollars to write about them.

kalpesh, don’t assume that’s the case for all bloggers. Sure plenty of people are doing paid posts, but not all of us are

I’m very much looking forward to converting to Wordpress so I can have more flexibility with my blogs navigation; blogger is incredibly easy to use, but with that ease of use also comes lack of customization options.

Hi,
This is a good post. It gives me the information I was in search of.

I have a small query - I don’t have any spam pages or websites. Still I am encountered with messages like “possible spam”, “Spam”, and so.

Do you have any idea why it’s such?

Thanks.

Hi,
This is a good post. This is the stuff I was actually looking for.

I have a question though – Frequent number of times I have got a warning as “spam” when I try bookmarking on sites like dig.com or muti.com.

I don’t have any spam pages or websites.

Any idea why do I meet with all these?

Thanks.

Hi,
This is a good post. This is the stuff I was actually looking for.

I have a question though – Frequent number of times I have got a warning as “spam” when I try bookmarking on sites like dig.com or muti.com.

I don’t have any spam pages or websites.

Any idea why do I meet with all these?

Thanks.

a great post. it was very informativ

It is always difficult to make your site or blog profitable without taking away from how user friendly it is! I struggle with this every day with my personal sites.

I try to keep my ads out of the way, and if anyone of my readers were to have a problem with them then I’d remove them. I don’t blog/webcomic for money, I do it for myself.

That said, one strategy people could consider (especially if you are using your own hosted verssion of wordpress) is to have a subscriber version without the advertising to keep your regular readers happy.

Sure the important navigation needs to be above the fold, and for a blog that’s your recent comments and a search function - as you said. Then if the blog is monetized then the ads want to be above the fold as well and, ideally, the more blended the better.
As long as your ads and navigation aren’t getting in the way of your content - as that is way people come and visit your blog - then everyone is a winner.

i never thought of how essential a recent comments section in the navigation of a blog is. good call, i’ll try it. i might have to get a word press plugin for it.

Great suggestions.

READING YOUR SITE IS VERY USER FRENDLY, HOW EASY CAN IT BE? ARTICLES ARE INFORMATIVE, AND I’M ACTUALLY LEARNING SOMETHING TODD

I agree that a blog needs a good menu system. If your visitors experience difficulties in finding what they want in your blogs, it is more likely that they jump into another blog where navigation is better.