In my quest to make sure the blog covers the $14/month or so cost for hosting, I looked around for Sponsorships. I thought I’d found something, which I will describe. The visitors can tell me what they think, in comments and by poll.
Sponsorship
Social Spark (SS) lets bloggers find temporary sponsors for their blogs. The sponsors pay a daily fee; the blogger in turn runs an form of… yes…. pop up ad.
It goes without saying that pop-ups are , shall we say “In your face”? (By the way, evidently, this type of popup is called a “Blog Welcome”.)
Normally, I’d immediately just say no to pop-ups. But this is one of those slightly less obnoxious kind of popups. The less obnoxious feature is that it’s designed to recognize visitors and only display once to any individual visitor. The visitor hits the go-away box, and, supposedly, never has to experience that particular pop again. (Of course, if the blogger gets a second sponsorship… well… )
The Poll
Comments
It’s always impossible to craft just the right questions in a blog poll. What I really want is feedback. (FWIW, I have not accepted the offer to run any sponsorships yet. I wanted to explain them to my readers first.)
Info about polls at WordPress blogs
I always like to give information when I add a new blog features. This polls was created using Lester Chan’s WP-Polls plugin. I couldn’t get the “Poll” button in the “Write Post” button to display, so I also installed Exec-PHP plugin for WordPress. This let me insert the PHP Lester discussed in the “usage” section of his plugin description page. I inserted the PHP for the poll in the post, and the poll displayed.
Evidently, the poll will automatically show results when the poll closes. This is the first time I’m using it, so we’ll see.
Well, I don’t like pop-ups. How about having a tip jar?
Fred–
In my experience, tip jars don’t work. I made (and still make) a little money at my knitting blog. I’m just trying to look into newer options to see what exists. Last time I talked about ads, one of the visitors told me of a program that might help– so I joined. I’ll be joining a few more.
While I do this, I figure I should talk about it because some visitors may have tips!
FWIW: I don’t like popups– but I also want to learn how much various people mind the various types. So… the survey. Also, I need to see how well the survey works. Once I run one, I can look at the code, see if it’s “hardened” for cheating and run real surveys! 🙂
Not a super regular reader here. I know you’re looking for feedback, but the “If a blogger I like…” option describes what I think very accurately. I think I know the kind of thing you’re looking at from looking at the screen shot, and they really are nowhere near as obnoxious as “regular” pop-up ads.
Oddly enough, I recently ran into one of these at an online newpaper type site. But it was shifted off to the right, so I could read the article.
These are a little less obnoxious than other popups because you don’t have to close them. If you surf away from a window, they do go away. Stil, I’m looking at other options. I don’t need to maximize income– just find ways that are mostly passive.
BTW: So far, the poll software works great!
I’d definitely try less intrusive money making options first. Experiment with Amazon widgets. E.g. the recommended product widget using the bestseller DVD category. I mean which is more interesting, the Mama Mia film or a book about climate!
Also there are hosts out there that easily beat $14/month. I’ve been using a $7/month reseller at hostww.net for several years without major reliability problems.
Bear in mind that a good portion of your userbase probably uses Adblock Plus, which would probably block the popup regardless :-p
Zeke–
Yes. I suspect many do. I even approve of that. I’m not sure if it blocks this kind of pop-up. The only way I could test is to run the ad, turn my adblock plus on and see.
But that would be subjecting my readers to the popup!
I agree with fieldnorth. You could not only get standard hosting for the same price per month, you could get reseller hosting, allowing you to carve up your space/bandwidth for however many domains you want. That’s how a friend and I do it. Actually, how much space and bandwidth do you use every month, if you don’t mind me asking.
Re 6849: But that would be subjecting my readers to the popup.
Why not put the popup on an explicitly labeled thread or on your older thread discussing advertising ideas in general. Then those who care to try before you buy, err sell, can do so.
Snorkleman–
The way that sponsorship works, I can’t do that. It’s set up so the pop-up appears on whatever page the person visits. It’s a “per day” fee, not a “per view”, so even if I could code to interfere with this, it wouldn’t be fair to the advertiser to cheat them out of what they paid for.
Lucia-
Well doh! Think before typing, I keep telling myself that but it doesn’t always work.
Do you have a Paypal thingy somewhere I missed? I’d sponsor the next round of brownies or something.
I can put up a paypal thingie. I need to back brownies today. (I’ve been MIA because my boss had a crunch on something. I work part time in spurts. I’m in one of them! I’m counting detection limits on Sarin and Mustard gas.
I have found a few ad programs that might fit this blog better though.