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Ads inappropriate on blogs marketing professional service or product

Running ads is inappropriate when your blog is being used to further enhance your reputation or that of your product. The adds are not going to generate enough money to make it worthwhile anyway. And in some cases, an attempt to pick up a few bucks a month from your blog can damage your reputation.

Look at how little money is generated. Mike Davidson just reported on the test results of running Google Adsense ads on his blog.

Well it’s been a week since I threw a Google ad into the header region of this site and the results are in. With just under 50,000 page views, my earnings were just under $100.

It was sort of a low traffic week with not a lot of posting, linkage, or commenting activity, but even so, $400 a month isn’t enough for me show that huge ad to everyone who comes to this site.

Mike, CEO of Newsvine, has a long standing national reputation for his design & development work. His well read blog with incoming links from thousands of websites and blogs ranks in the top thousand at Technorati. And Mike can generate $100 per week in ad money.

Look at your blog popularity compared to his. I’ll bet it’s not 25% of the traffic or ranking. Even with high pay per click rates and decent traffic, you’re unlikely to hit $50 per month.

Many of you are blogging to enhance your reputation as an authority. Some of you may be blogging to market a product by garnering good will and word of mouth support through the blogosphere.

Assuming you’re doing a nice job, you’re reaching a small, but for you, powerful marketing base. Your traffic is growing. Your search engine performance is improving. Your network is growing. You’re being cited online and offline. And you’re generating more business.

The next step is to explore how you can get even better at marketing through your blog. The next step is not selling ads on your blog.

I know you see Google AdSense ads being run at blogs all over. And you’re thinking I’ve got this audience whose interests are perfect for certain advertisers.

But think about it for a second. Do you sell ads on your firm or company website? Do you run ads on place settings when you take potential clients or customers out to eat? Do you run ads in the conference room where you meet with potential clients and customers?

Think of your reputation. If you’re a law firm or other professional service firm charging hundred’s of dollars an hour for your time, do you want to be viewed as so hard up you need to sell ads on a blog?

If you need another $50 or $100 a week to survive, take a hard look at what you’re doing. If you have a good product or service, improve your marketing or sales efforts. If sound marketing and sales isn’t working, start looking for a new service or product to sell.

  • http://emm-ess.blogspot.com Marc Snyder

    “Running ads is inappropriate when your blog is being used to further enhance your reputation or that of your product.”
    I think you’re wrong. GoogleAds aren’t inappropriate, they’re tacky.
    I’m thinking of running an ad. It’s from a sponsorship-type thing. What do you think about that? Let’s say Lexis wanted to sponsor your blog? What would be wrong with that?

  • http://www.deathandtaxesblog.com Joel S.

    Kevin-
    Here’s what I don’t understand. You say ads are inappropriate on lawyer blogs (I agree). But a few weeks ago you were talking about how great it is to see lawyers using myspace to market their practices. And you cite with approval one specific attorney (Jason Lopez). Mr. Lopez’s myspace page (found here) is covered with inappropriate images, ads, etc.

  • http://www.chinalawblog.com China Law Blog

    Amen.
    But here is where the question gets a little more difficult. A number of the leading commerical type blog empires have asked us to join them, promising readership and riches. I have no doubt that joining up with increase our readership, but we have always turned them down because joining up would require we run their ads. We are giving up more than $100 a week in turning these blog outfits down.
    What are your thoughts on these?

  • http://sjglover.com/blog/ Sam Glover

    I have tried to build my blog up as a separate entity from my practice site (though without a unique URL, I’m not sure how effective that is).
    I briefly tried Google Ads as an experiment, and was amused (and slightly horrified) to find that all the ads were for subprime lenders, shady credit repair, and other consumer predators. Since my site is a pro-consumer blog, the ads lasted about a day.

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    >>We are giving up more than $100 a week in turning these blog outfits down.

  • http://www.HowToMakeItRain.com RJON@HowToMakeItRain.com

    Mr. O’Keefe,
    I think you are mixing different issues.
    The first issue I believe has to do with one’s philosophy of selling. Mine is that selling legal services is really all about helping clients find solutions to their problems & opportunities. Accordingly, if a reader is spending his or her time on a blog with a specific subject matter, then I am of the opinion that displaying ads that are reasonably calculated to help people with problems related to that subject, serves to enhance the reader’s experience by providing additional resources.
    Second issue is what kinds of ads are more akin to resources vs. intrusions. For example, a blog about marketing legal services (to pick a subject close to my heart) that displays ads which are reasonably calculated to help lawyers attract more clients, manage accounts recievable, etc. should logically be percieved by readers as a resource. An ad for a sub-prime loan or for a rental car on that same hypothetical blog, is an intrusion.
    A third separate issue is whether or not the income generated from the ad warrants the blogger’s time & attention to bother with. Again, this decision has alot to do with the blogger’s philosophy, I think. A blogger whose only measure of success is revenue, might look at it alot differently than one who is at least partially motivated by helping people who have a problem related to the subject matter of his/her blog, to find a solution.
    And finally, a hundred dollars still buys a nice dinner in most cities these days, and the meals enjoyed by a blogger that are paid for by passive revenues generated from blogging, I think you would find most of us agree, taste pretty darn good!
    Respectfully,
    RJON ROBINS
    http://www.HowToMakeItRain.com
    Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make ALOT More Money

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    Following that logic Ron, why not a lawyer in bankrupcty court with stickers on his briefcase and files advertising credit counseling services? They would be offering a resource needed by exactly the people in court.
    Why not banner ads for credit counseling services on a bankruptcy lawyer website that is performing well on the search engines. The banner could say ‘sponsored by’ so as not to be confused with advertising. You’d be helping people I guess.
    You can advise lawyers to sell out for a nice dinner. I’m not buying it.

  • http://www.insurancecoverageblog.com David Rossmiller

    I think Kevin’s comment just above may be on to something. I’m going to see if I can get my court appearances sponsored by a company who is not my client. That way I can say, “May it please the court, this argument is brought to you by HotCelebrityGossip.com”. It doesn’t sound like double billing and I could make a buck, so how could it be wrong?

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    Joel, on the ads on the lawyer’s MySpace presence, my guess is that it comes with the MySpace presence and that there’s nothing much you can do about. I’m not saying that everything about MySpace is perfect for lawyer marketing, nor that it’s even appropriate for all lawyers, just that it may be a good fit as one means of networking for some lawyers.

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    >>I’m thinking of running an ad. It’s from a sponsorship-type thing. What do you think about that? Let’s say Lexis wanted to sponsor your blog? What would be wrong with that?>>I’m thinking of running an ad. It’s from a sponsorship-type thing. What do you think about that? Let’s say Lexis wanted to sponsor your blog? What would be wrong with that?