Very briefly – for about 30 minutes, I was on the front page of Pay Per Post as a top earner today. Like I said, within about 30 minutes I was replaced by other top earners who went on to do more posts. But it was still a bit of a thrill to see my name and icon show up in that box. Most days I look at that box and dream of things that will never be, but today I lucked out and scored not one but TWO huge opps that paid quite nicely. Those two posts make up for the seven days I had no opps available to me at all.
In other news, I have yet to have ANY clicks on my WidgetBucks sidebar ad that now features movies. Not that I had better luck with AdSense, but I was still hoping that by having an ad in place that actually sold stuff I talked about on the website I’d be more likely to have clickthrus on that widget. The only negative to WidgetBucks is that I don’t have a LOT of control over the types of products they show. The claim to have a way of letting the widget troll my site to find keywords that it’ll use, but when I used that function all those showed up in my ad were TENNIS SHOES.
Lastly, Amy has started a new blog, One Tree Hill Blog and graciously signed up for the domain via my Bluehost affiliate link, which is awesome. So if you are a fan of One Tree Hill – definitely go visit her site and show her some OTH love.
I know you’re making money and that’s a very good thing but this used to be a fun blog to go to, now it’s one big ad. The new theme doesn’t help.
Maybe you should create a new website that is just what Cootiehog used to be and create a second site that is all about ads and making money, no real family/work/movie posts there. I can’t believe the people who care about this site are clicking through on your PPP’s, so you wouldn’t lose any money or any visitors to “Cootiehog”. Plus, you can click on your own Bluehost link to create this new Advertising site and make more money that way. LOL
Denis – this blog is NOT one big ad. I’ve made 73 posts in over 2 1/2 months. That averages out to ONE a day – and most days I post 4-5 times a day unless I’m really busy. So this blog is NOT one big ad. As fo the sidebars, I only have ONE ad there (WidgetBucks).
I’m not losing visitors to Cootiehog – in fact, my daily visitor count has increased in the past few weeks. My regular readers have been told that they can choose not to read any posts labelled “PPP”, and I’ve also got my feed set up so those posts don’t show up in the feeds of anyone who reads the site that way.
Lastly, PPP and the advertisers don’t want their ads to be on splogs (spam blogs) – they want the posts and ads to be on real, legit blogs. It’s why PPP requires that the paid posts NOT be next to each other, but spread out with original content between PPP entries.
I think Cootiehog is a great blog. If you disagree, then don’t read it.
I ignore the ads. And I have to say that the ads that move annoy me more than anything else. So you’re ticking off your readers by increasingly monetizing what used to be a fun, personal blog.
I’ll keep reading because you’re family and I’m willing to weed through the ads to get to the stuff I’m interested in. But you’re probably losing other readers.
My 2 cents.
Jen: then you must not read a *lot* of blogs anymore, because I’d say at least 75% of the blogs I read have monetized their blog.
It pisses me off that people get so high and mighty about bloggers putting ads on their blogs. Me putting up ads doesn’t make the blog less personal. I still post about my kids, my family, my job, movies, tv, music, life, etc. That hasn’t changed in the past 2 1/2 months that I’ve done paid posting or put up ads. But according to you, 73 paid posts out of 306 constitutes a less personal blog? Did YOU post 306 posts between Oct 9 – Dec 14 (or to be more exact, 233 personal posts)? Because I did. So tell me again how my blog isn’t personal anymore, please.
And I guess you missed the part of the response to Denis where I said my daily readership has actually GONE UP in the past few weeks, thanks to more diligent use of tags on my posts to help people find me.
And gee, thanks for being willing to “weed through the ads” to read this site. Sheesh. Weed through ads. whatever.
*gets down off soapbox*
Look, I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t like it. I don’t like it.
While 73 posts doesn’t seem like a lot, it is a lot in the time frame. No matter how you try to make the post personal, I can tell from the title and/or opening sentence that I’m reading an ad. It’s annoying.
And you’re right, I’m not reading as many blogs anymore – partly because they advertise too much.