Ask Arlee: Arlee Has Some Questions For You

Google 貼牌冰箱（Google Refrigerator） (Photo credit: Aray Chen)

   
       As most regular readers of Tossing It Out probably know by now, I have an intense interest and curiosity about marketing and promotion and how the whole darn thing works.  I like to experiment with marketing ideas and I like to hear about what other people have done.

         In this post I'd like to address Google Ads.  Some of you probably dislike ads on blogs.  I may have even lost some past readers because of the ads that appear on my page.   Others of you have Google Ads like I do.   Or you may be part of an "associate program", sell your own ads, or advertise books or products that you or others are offering.  Maybe you get paid for the advertising that appears on your blog or perhaps not.

        My focus will be on the Google Ads.  There is a reason that certain ads show up on the page when you are looking at my blog or another blog that includes Google Ads.  I won't go into that here, but I would like for you to scroll down to the bottom of this current post and take note of what the ad is about.  Also if you are inclined to do so, scroll down the sidebar and tell me what ad you see right now and you can also scroll to the bottom of the page to see what that ad is.   Please tell me in the comments what was being advertised on your screen.

         For example, as I write this piece, looking at my Tossing It Out page for today I see a cell phone ad from AT&T.  In the sidebar there is an ad for a brand of tea.  At the bottom of the page is another ad for AT&T.   At Wrote By Rote (my memoir blog) there are ads for Dun & Bradstreet, Sports Authority, and See's Candy (mmm--I'm composing this post the day before Valentine's Day).    Moving on to my dream blog A Faraway View I see two ads for Dun & Bradstreet and one for an astrology website.

        For the most part I know why we see some different ads as we look at the same blog page and why we might be seeing the same ads in other cases.  Do you know why you are seeing the ads you are seeing?  Does the presence of Google Adsense on a blog bother or offend you in any way?   Would my blog look better without the ads or would you even notice that they were not there?   Are you annoyed by a page that's filled with images of books, badges, widgets, awards, and other images?    Would you prefer mostly a page filled with text?   Do you even think about such things?

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A Blog Blossoms

......continued from yesterday.

       I was now writing every day.  Blogging had begun to feel like a part time job that I wasn't getting paid for.  I was taking this job seriously.  When I wasn't writing my blog post, applying for jobs, or tending my Craigslist offerings, I was researching the art of blogging to learn what I needed to do to make my blog work best.  I did not have any schedule or particular plan.  I would just write something related to Halloween and post it sometime during each day.

         By my fourth post I signed up as a follower on Stephen T. McCarthy's blog and left him a comment so that he would know that I now had a blog.  He in turn became my first follower and left my first blog comments on my post of September 23rd.  Comments and a follower!  I was thrilled.

         On Sepember 28th I received my first unsolicited out-of-the-blue comment from Jennifer Hudson Taylor.  It was one of the most helpful comments I have received.  She suggested that I develop a blog schedule themed according to each day of the week.  I decided I would take her advice after my Halloween posting was finished.

          I soon began racking up followers and getting more comments on my blog posts.  My blogging enterprise was taking off.   However, I checked my AdSense request each day and still no approval.  I could not figure out what the problem was and my inquiries to Google went unanswered.  I did not understand, but I was starting not to care either.  It was becoming more about the writing and the potential that writing held for me.  Perhaps ads were not something I wanted on my site.

          My research was starting to indicate to me that AdSense did not really yield much income at all, if any.  Would I really want advertising on this blog that had become more about the writing than anything else?  I was faithfully composing articles that often involved a great deal of research at times and at other times were personal observations and memoirs.  The latter were the posts that seemed to elicit comments whereas the more informational posts were typically ignored.  I was starting to get a feel for the type of subject matter that was most likely to gain and retain readers.

          I was also becoming a part of a blog community that mostly consisted of writers, which was helpful to my writerly pursuits.  Having learned about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) that would be occurring in November I decided to sign up and attempt to fulfill a long time dream of writing a novel.  The discipline of daily writing and corresponding with other bloggers was taking hold.   I was exerting a writing discipline that I had never had before in my life.  
        On Halloween, October 31, of 2009 I announced my new blog schedule which I would be working on concurrently with writing my novel, A Desert Place.  I became regimented with blogging and writing.  By the end of November, I had completed the 50,000 words required to "win" the NaNo competition and had successfully posted and commented on a daily basis.  In a two month span, I had passed the fifty follower milestone and was getting comments on a regular basis.  I set a goal of 100 followers by the New Year.

        What happen to AdSense?   Who knows.  It didn't matter to me now.  I was more concerned with blog integrity.  Now I had a writer's blog and I felt that ads might convey the wrong impression.  I was more concerned about getting readers and having a presence on the internet.  The all important platform was now my quest.  I needed to establish my name and my reputation.

 .......more of the story later, but first.......

        Tomorrow I'll be joining Elana Johnson's Writing Compelling Characters Blogfest.  If you haven't signed up yet, you still have an opportunity.  Most of you probably are well aware of the great potential in increasing the follower count on your blog by joining one of these blogfests.   This one should be a doozey since as I write this the sign up count is already at 151 participants. 

          My contribution to this blogfest will be in line with my One Year Blog Anniversary as I discuss how I have used "compelling characters" in some of my blog posts.

           Next Monday I will complete the history of Tossing It Out in a Blog Boggled installment which will describe the techniques I used to gain followers and encourage readership.  It's more Blog Science--some strategies you may have already heard and some ideas that may be new to you.  I hope we get some information interchange going where we can all learn something about blogging that will help us to blog better.