There is no set of rules or guides for golf blogging. Where golf blogging will be in 6 months or 6 years from now is anyone’s guess. But blogging is becoming more and more mainstream. It is becoming more of a trusted “source” for information and you know there are many other outlets out there who are very afraid.
Since HOG got it’s first sponsor a long time ago it has been an interesting experiment. I’ve had various ads here from the likes of Callaway, TaylorMade, Golfsmith, Golfgods, Gimme A Ruling, Teego and many others. Quite frankly I don’t make much dough off this site at all, and that was never the reason I started it anyway. I started it because I love golf. But it is nice that the site can pay it’s own expenses for hosting and the like.
One experiment has been the google ads. You see them everywhere on the web. I have some small links up top here and some bigger ones down the right column. If you click on them I may make a few cents. It all adds up I suppose.
Google won’t give you any dough until you reach $100. Guess what? I’m only $1.76 away from that first google check. I can put that $100 into hosting or reinvest it somehow into making this site better. Suggestions?
I’m not sure I’ll continue to run the google ads though. What do you think? The site is growing exponentially and the google ads are growing with it. Do the ads bother you? Do they take away from the site? Do you just ignore them or do you actually click there occasionally when something happens to interest you?
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
Dear Maharishi HOG,
You pose a number of excellent exponential queries in your quest for some ultimate feedback. First things first though, I would like to extend to you a happy belated Blog-Day. I enjoy your site immensely: your comments, reviews and everything the like. Your site has become a staple for information and forum regarding anything and everything Golf. For that, I say thank you.
You make several valid points in your post. You have worked on your site for one year now, and in various ways, you are seeing the fruits of your labor. To be honest with you, as someone who rummages around the “information superhighway†all the time, I come across all kinds of ads in one way shape or another. I’ll poke around if something looks a little spicy, but other than that, I rarely get click crazy.
But that’s just the Big Brother Fear inside me.
Dear Mr. Mediaguru
I am only about 6 or 8 weeks into your blog and enjoy it quite regularly. Keep up the good work.
I for one beleive targeted advertising is acceptable and at times have found it useful. Keep the google adsense ads. i will even look at a few to help you out today.
I did a few clicks and had to bookmark one of them.