Yes, there is now advertising on Epiblogger. Lee and I hadn’t expected our little blog to grow up so fast, but they always do, don’t they? We actually hadn’t planned on putting any advertising on Epiblogger for a while, but someone sought us out. So we had to consider it.
Before I talk about the who’s and the what’s, I would like to discuss advertising in general. I have a lot to say on the topic of advertising, but I want to outline how Lee and I are going to specifically approach advertising here—delicately. We have always maintained that we would move to a place where we would monetize this site. But we wouldn’t do this without a lot of thought and consideration. I think advertising, for us, will be a process of adding boundaries. At first, it will be fairly relaxed, but as we go I plan to be more and more selective about the advertising we have.
To begin, we will only be placing ads for products that we know and use or that we have sufficiently researched. I would like to move towards advertising products that I believe to be organic. But, that’s a subjective definition for the most part. I would like to support things that I believe in, that I think are good ideas or that are sustainable—or some combination of that. I will go into more detail with these things in the future. Especially once the article is out and organic blogging—as an idea and starting point—has a strong foundation.
Oh, I need to mention, that I won’t be doing paid reviews—ever. I wouldn’t do that to you. I will likely mention advertisers in posts, but only to explain why we chose them and to be completely transparent about the process.
So, who asked us to put up advertising? Well, we got lucky. At least, I think we got lucky. The fellow behind Lastminute Auction emailed us about it. I honestly can’t remember when I first read about this site, but I have always kept it bookmarked and I usually look through the site once or twice a week to see if there are any good deals. When we got the email from him asking if we would advertise for him I was very excited. First, it was a great feeling of having someone come to us and seek us out. It’s not the money (there wasn’t a lot involved) that made it special but the offer to give money that was validating. He did not ask about our stats or numbers. He saw our blog, liked what he saw and wanted to advertise. I really appreciate that. I appreciate and take the small victories especially when they don’t come all that frequently with blogging. We agreed to advertising Lastminute Auction because it’s a cool idea, a unique service and something that I currently use and like.
For the time being, we are placing two other ads on our site. One was my choice and the other was Lee’s. I will get Lee to add in his two-bits after me. The advertising I chose is the same I use on my personal blog, rockstarpoet, and that is the awesome tshirt company: Uneetee.com. I originally found the site through stumbleupon and my wardrobe can attest to my support of this site. I own at least 8 of these shirts, but I honestly lost count.
I guess it is my turn. This is Lee and I would love to tell you about my choice for the other ad we are placing. It is for Mozy.com, an online backup service. I personally use MozyPro to backup my files in the event I have a hard drive die or we have some kind of tragic event here at the house and my computer is destroyed. I also install Mozy on many of the clients computers that I deal with around town that are looking for an easy to use backup system. While I use MozyPro, Mozy offers both a 2gb free version and an unlimited backup solution for only $4.95 a month. I tried some other online backup solutions but I found Mozy to be the easiest. Once it is installed it is pretty much set and forget and all you have to do is know that your files are backed up. You know how important your files are, Mozy will help keep them safe. I could probably go on and on about it, and I do on my blog. I do highly recommend Mozy as an online backup solution, and encourage you to give it a try.
I would like to hear about how you approach ads on your site(s). Do you censor advertising?
Photo by Ed Tarwinski
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4 Comments
I’m struggling with that. For now, my solution is to try to start a new, less personal blog where I could test some ads. But never PPP (I actually wrote a joke post about it, where I pretended to promote Coca Cola. Funny how many people thought I was serious). Good luck.
Yup, it’s a tough decision. Or is it? Maybe I am over-thinking this entire process. However, I have a heard time suggesting or putting my name behind something I know nothing about or potentially offends me or the readers. I do think moving towards supporting products that make sense…makes sense.
Kudos to you for taking the time and effort to consider the issue so thoughtfully in terms of how your decision will affect your audience. Everyone has different perceptions about advertising according to how they view the role and purpose of their blog. However you proceed, I wish you much success in your decision. And, by the by, thanks for the tip on Lastminute Auction. Never heard of the site, but I’ve bookmarked it already!
Take care.
Kimberly
Rhett is off partying it up in Las Vegas for the next few days so I will reply. Rhett and I both knew we would accept advertising here on Epiblogger at some point. This was sooner than we were planning, but in many ways it has encouraged us to get things moving on the new design here for Epiblogger. We did not want to run ads for websites, products or services that we do not know about and use. How can you trust us if we sell you, the reader out, to bad deals. If that means we don’t accept certain ads so be it. I would rather be able to sleep at night knowing that the ads and services we advertise will be helpful or useful to you the reader.
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[...] we decided to put ads on Epiblogger we had to answer the first question—How much will it cost? And in order to give a number, we [...]