Scanning the ‘net you’ll see the entire gamut of ad configurations on blogs. From single page/post blogs awash with ad blocks and affiliate links, to blogs of many hundreds of pages/posts without a single ad.
The choice to include paid advertising on a blog should not be made lightly as it can impact user experience and thereby be self-defeating. Monetizing blog traffic is of no use if the act of monetizing drives away the traffic. Some choose never to use paid advertising, others go at it hammer and tongs from the outset.
So, when is a good time to add paid advertising to a blog?
Over the years, I have experimented a little with introducing different types of paid advertising at different periods of a blog’s existence and I now subscribe to the notion that paid advertising should be avoided during the early stages of a blog’s life.
The early phase of a blog’s existence should be spent almost exclusively establishing a solid original content base. By this I mean laying down about of the order of 100 posts, equating to about 25 000 words. This can be accomplished within a month, however, I like to do this over a 2-3 month period so that organic traffic and linking can proceed naturally.
On previous blogs, I loaded pages with affiliate advertising from the outset and although the sites contained good original content (though not 25 000 words in the first month) they did not ferment naturally at the outset and yield the organic search results or linkage of non-ad laden sites. This could have been related to the ratio of outbound affiliate linkage per page/post to the overall content.
After the first three months, or longer if the content accrual has been slower than anticipated, I will usually include ads in less conspicuous positions, developing their presence over time as content and search engine reach develops.
