Stop Ad Blindness on Your Blog

[bestimtools]

We all know that people get ad blind in the net, because surfers are haunted by advertisers everywhere.

Today I was contacted by the blogger and plugin creator whom I was interviewing this autumn. He is sharing for free a plugin that makes the ads look non-ad like which can be a nice solution to the ad blindess.

If you are interested - free plugin is here (http://www.maxblogpress.com/a/go.php?c=msa_nk).

[ses5909]

So it looks like its basically an ad management tool in a sense for WP, but it blends in the ads more with the content?

I know people with ads usually want to get more clicks, but quite often when things are blended in too well, it messes with the user experience. This is one reason that a lot of people don't like Kontera for example.

What are your thoughts on this?

[adalante]

Yea, what ses5909 said plus the plugin needs a password before one can download the plugin.

[bestimtools]

I know people with ads usually want to get more clicks, but quite often when things are blended in too well, it messes with the user experience. This is one reason that a lot of people don't like Kontera for example.

I did not think it this way. Perhaps, was too absorbed by the issue of "blendness." Do you think this can be a truly big disadvantage for the users and, hence, for the blog owner?


plus the plugin needs a password before one can download the plugin

I think he is sharing the plugins for free, but asks subscription in return (free subscription). Some can subscribe - get pass - unsubscribe. But I know this guy and he creates nice plugin on a regular basis, so staying on the list is a bargain, and the only drawback is that you will get emails from him with new plugin annoucements.

[deronsizemore]

In a lot of situations, unless done right, ads in general take away from the user experience. It seems to me that when someone is using ads on their site like a blog where they update it will useful content, they are wanting their cake and eat it too. You want readers and traffic to get to your blog and read your content, but you're also trying your hardest to entice people to click on ads that take them away from your blog/site.

If you're not planning on having anything useful to share on your site, by all means, slap some ads on there. :)

Don't get me wrong though, ads can be done right so that they are very unobtrusive to the visitor, still get your content across and make you money at the same time.

[ses5909]

I like the idea of only showing ads to people who come to your site from certain sources (ie, google, yahoo, SU), etc. That way your regular readers aren't affected by them.

[deronsizemore]

I like the idea of only showing ads to people who come to your site from certain sources (ie, google, yahoo, SU), etc. That way your regular readers aren't affected by them.

How do you show it only to certain sources? Or is that a feature for that plugin? (sorry, I didn't really look at it since I don't use WordPress)

[ses5909]

no, i dont think its a feature and not sure if it exists as of now, but you can easily check the referring domain and if it comes from a certain site (somewhere people probably wont stay in read) you can show them ads.

[bestimtools]

This type of "scripting" the display of ads got popular after Who Sees Ads plugin (it got even one of the prizes on the WordPress plugin competition). Since that time many plugin creators started to use the same functionality for their plugins.