Too much advertising on your blog can look spammy and tacky. It can scare off visitors and lose you credibility. But not advertising can mean no income. What is the answer?

It is quite reasonable to expect there to be some form of advertising on blogs. After all, the bloggers are paying for domain names, hosting and possibly other bills to provide a service for free. So if there is a chance of a small income, why not?

However, filling a blog full of advertising can look dreadful and gives the impression that it is the value of your readers that matter to the blogger, not the readers themselves. There is a fine balance between sufficient and too much.

If you read Google’s Adsense guide they recommend displaying three adsense units per page as the optimal way to earn money from them. And with their range of small to huge advert banners, you can certainly fill your site with advertising.

But, where do you place the adverts for best effect? In the content, in the navigation, above and below the post or one or more of a lot more options open to you?

As a rule, ignore Google’s insistence that 3 advert blocks (plus their search and other advertising units) makes the most money. Yes, it gives plenty of chance to build revenue, but even three blocks is too much. Instead, just two advert blocks around the page.

This does not always need to translate to two Google blocks (or two affiliate links). It just means keep to two advertising positions on the page that look subtle, but are visible to visitors. You can put a couple of similar sized Google blocks and affiliate links together to form an advertising block if you want to, just make sure that they look good together and look as though they are meant to go together.

So, where to put them? Well you have to balance places on the website that people will look with not being too ‘in your face’. Add some advertising to your main navigation in a similar style to your navigation and it will blend in well. Maybe put a wide block across the top of the screen, or a second block further down the navigation, whichever works best for your blog.

Some people worry that this means that there is no advertising at the end of the post, but this is what you want.

Those people most likely to click on adverts are those that have just arrived. Therefore, put the adverts where they can be seen when the page is opened. However, those that have read your post in full and reached the bottom of the post are liable to be able to be encouraged into becoming regular readers, so give them more to read, not adverts.

I’ve used quite a few different paid to post systems over this year in the hope of earning a good income. Yet, out of all of the systems that I have tried, only two have really fulfilled the promise. Why?

PayPerPost
I have to say that although it has gone quiet for me the last few months (I was earning $600 – $700 per month at peak, now down to $250 – $300) this is one of the two that I still check daily. Easy to use, a good support forum and generally fair prices. Well worth it.

BlogDistributor
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I didn’t like this system when I first tried it, but it grew on me. Well worth having a go, but your blog has to be perfectly written else you won’t be accepted! Write your post and submit it for approval. Once approved you then link to the advertiser. No approval = no free link, which is great and they pay well. The problem is lack of variation in tasks, but that should grow as they build. This is the second site that I still like to use.

SponsoredReviews
This is the first system that I “dumped”. First I got fed up of bidding on tasks that I hardly ever got to do. Then I got fed up of the tasks that came through the marketplace. You see, a 100 word and a 300 word article are paid the same amount, which is crazy, and the amount was next to nothing. No communication from them when they had a problem with a post and when I asked for help, no emails either. I just had to logon and see if there was a support reply.

InPostLinks
I do, sort of, keep running with this one but only because I don’t like to let things go! The problem here is that you have to keep logging and and looking for work. Then, when you find it, to get $2 for a 200 word post is a good payment on a PR3 blog. Maybe if the blog is a lot higher ranking and US based (I’m UK based) then some of those tempting better paying offers become available. But, one for the future, maybe.

SocialSpark
I’ve not really given up here, just I don’t see how to get a good volume of work through and I have no idea what their ‘points’ payment system equates to. A good idea in that you submit the post to them for review, but I’ve been waiting now for my last post to be reviewed for 12 days. Again, maybe shelved for the future for when my blog traffic has increased even more, although the ops I have had from them have not been aimed at my highest traffic blog.

BlogsVertise
I think this could be a good system, but as with BlogDistributor there just isn’t the work. At first there were plenty of jobs coming through, but with a range of PR2 & PR3 blogs there is almost nothing about. Prices vary widely, without any reason. I think if they spelled out what they were looking for in blogs it would help, but I have no idea. I thought at first maybe they were too new, but there is less work now than months ago.

Ebuzzing
This is a site that I want to use a lot, but as with others, there just is not the work available. There are plenty of video campaigns and especially recently I’ve been asked to take part in a lot of these, but given they are paid per view and completely off the topic of my blog, where would be the point? Shame. When there is an article it pays well, there just needs to be more opportunities to write articles for them!

ReviewMe
I have done maybe one or two posts for this site and never heard from them since, although they did pay out. Again, it is not clear what you need to do to get plenty of work. It seems that most of the work goes to the bloggers with the best reviews on their posts. But, as a newbie to the system, how do you get good reviews?

Sponzai
Another that I’ve not given up on, rather it has given up with me! Although there is a balance that I can withdraw. This is all about being paid to include guest posts. However, it is a sister site to PayPerPost and some of the interface is well behind the development there, so it looks like it is not being maintained (also their Twitter account has not been updated for 10 months). Good idea, in a way, but just not the demand maybe?

Disclaimer!
Obviously all of the above are just my opinions, based on my experiences with these systems. My blogging started a year ago and my venture into paid blogging started earlier this year. That means that most of my blogs have ‘low’ PageRanks™ (PR2 / PR3) because Google hasn’t updated the information in 8 months and they are all experiments in blogging so traffic across them can be low.

Maybe if your blog is higher ranking and higher traffic you know the secrets of working these systems. If so, do let me know by leaving a comment!