Hello!
First off, thank you to the over 370 subscribers to this site through both the main The Carey Adventures feed and the Photo Of The Day feed! I appreciate you checking out the site on a regular basis and look forward to delivering more relevant and fun content that you may value.
I’ve been experimenting with ads on this site for a bit now, trying to see what makes sense and what actually delivers. You probably have noticed the ads including the Amazon banner on the left side. I’ve tried to keep the ads low as I don’t like sites that have a ton of crap all over the place, making the content hard to find. But I do also want this blog to help at least pay for its webhosting. To that end, last month was the first month ads on this site actually covered the expenses generated by the site! Yipee!
I want to explain my ad strategy going forward so it’s all on the up and up. I also value your input by leaving a comment in the comment section below.
For now, I’m going to drop all Google AdSense ads in posts. While they aren’t obnoxious, they really aren’t creating a return more than a couple bucks a month (this month is at $1.59, not enough for a good organic chocolate bar). I’ll be replacing those in-post ads with more directed graphic ads from the likes of Expedia and REI, places I frequent and value their products. These will mostly appear in the longer posts, and an old example would be this Peru Adventuring post, and the Google AdSense ads that appear just down from the top are what will be replaced.
I’m also going to embark on a campaign to review more travel stuff. Stuff I’ve used and either found value or fault with and that you may find useful. If it’s not useful, I won’t post it. In other words, I won’t be posting something just to include an affiliate link back to a site where you can buy the product and I get a commission if you buy. With some sites, that’s about ALL they do and I don’t want to go that route. But I wanted to let you know most of the actual products will have some kind of affiliate link with them. If you like it, by all means, buy one as it’ll help the site out.
I’ll also be passing on some regular deals for some of the advertisers I’ve signed up with. Again, I’ll only pass on things that are useful and I won’t get all spammy. No more than one post a week about some deal I’d actually use…..if I had the time and money. :)
For now, I’m still keeping ads off of the Photo Of The Day feature. I may include links in the future, but they will be text links most likely and highly relevant to the content, such as linking the city name with deals on flights to get there. It won’t be gaudy, I don’t like gaudy.
That’s about it! Thanks for reading this far. If you don’t agree with my tactics, please let me know. If my decision turns you off and you decide to not subscribe any more, I can understand and I wish you a great and fun life.
