I read an article recently that was getting overly excited about some statistics! Numbers suggesting that advertising on the Internet was the next biggest thing in, well to put it simply, the advertising business! Soon to surpass the radio and magazines in money spent, sort of excitement with newspapers and the television not far behind!
I've been there; I've done that! I once thought that by placing appropriate ads on my website I could gain a nice little income. I was not expecting to be able to retire at forty and to have afternoon tea with Bill Gates, but somewhere at the back of my clogged brain, I had hoped for enough revenue so as to cover the operating costs of my website.
The 90cents that I got from Amazon over a six month period was a definite mood killer!
When I originally decided to place adverts on my otherwise free-for-all-to-read website I tread carefully. I chose companies that seemed appropriate, that aligned product wise to at least part of the article upon which page the advert was to reside. For example: My article on pets had a suitable advert for dog food; those on cell phones advertised download "ring tones" sites and my articles on food/drinks had reference to sites selling gourmet coffee or foods, etc. And when I could find nothing suitable I went to Amazon and found a novel or book that somehow seemed appropriate and advertised that instead!
I spent days, nay weeks organizing those adverts and uploading them and I spent further time pondering the continuing $0.00 balance that flashed up every time I checked! The actual statistics looked good. I had plenty of visitors to my websites, the impressions of adverts viewed were excellent and those that visitors had clicked upon astoundingly positive. But never once did anybody ever pull their wallet out of their pockets, never once did anybody take advantage of the products that I had so carefully placed in front of them!
I went away to sea and forgot about my website and my dreams of instant riches! When I returned, two months later, I got back into the mood and checked my income for the period! Ninety cents! I spent the next few days removing every advert that I had so meticulously placed, cursing myself for destroying my website with garish adverts for "handbags", trying to get people to book holidays that I had no proof or guarantee of value for money, and throwing flashing signs and music at people who had just come along for a quite read of my articles!
I ripped out every advert, from replica models that were not much smaller than the actual ships themselves to "cheap fares" on Euro Rail and slowly but surely pieced back my website back to what it should always have been - a place to come and read my articles, without hindrance or colorful abuse being thrown hysterically around! I have kept on Google who had advertised discreetly, appropriately subject wise and who have managed in a short time to give me some income - enough maybe to cover the operating costs of the website which was the original aim.
My entrance into the advertising arena has given to me so much and yet so little. It gave me knowledge and an unhealthy respect for a game that was way out of my league; it also only gave to me 90cents!
Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.Com
21st February 2005
