I have a basic iWeb site, hosted on Mobile Me. Currently I have added GoogleAds around the site to try and raise a bit of cash to cover the costs of the site. Unfortunately no one clicks them.
I do not want to create an annoying site with lots of popups. However, my site does include a download section: and i would like to have a pop-up appear when a user clicks the download link.
I think this would be the best method of ads for my site, as they will not clutter up the site. I don't think users will mind too much, as I only want the ad to appear to when they get a download. That way they get something, and I get something. Seems fair enough...
I do not know how to do this though. Does GoogleAds also have a pop-up system? Is there any other similar services to GoogleAds that will pay me every time a pop-up appears? How do I set it up so that a user clicks a download link, gets the download, and make the pop-up appear?
I recently met another web developer, like myself, that just got kicked out of the Adsense program for trying to put adsense ads in popups (he knew better too, so I was ): it is against adsense TOS after all, and I don't think you want to go down that road.
...And Besides, as statistics will show, the only thing that ever gets clicked on in a pop-up ad is the close button as they are so damned intrusive. I think Google knows that a pop-up is the least successful place to put an ad and they don't want people wasting their time and money. Here is a good chart/heat map that shows the best areas to put ads on your website.
That being said, I have to disagree with your opinion on pop-ups being the best, or even a remotely good, method for displaying ads on a website. Maybe I mis-understood, but it sounds like you wanted to put the ad directly in the way of the user getting their download, this will very likely frustrate them; you want to put ads where they will be helpful to your users instead!
For Example: maybe you have a blog, and in there a post about a camping trip where you write about a sleeping bag that saved your butt on a really cold night. A nice ad at the END of the post, displaying camping gear, would be helpful from the users perspective, as they will hopefully(depending on how well you sold that sleeping bag!) be asking themselves questions such as: "where can I get a sleeping bag like that?". This is an important concept: you don't ever want to force ads on users or put ads in the way of your content. The ads should be placed in such a way that they become a sort of answer to a potential question: or, a solution to a potential problem the user needs to have solved.
Something else to keep in mind if you're not aware of this already: if you don't have targeted visitors coming to your website specifically for the content you offer, it won't matter how many ads you have or how nicely placed they are. Do some reading on basic SEO(Search Engine Optimization) as this is very important for making sure that people, that are interested in the content you have, are coming to your website. If they are not interested in the content you have, then they are likely not going to be interested in the ads showing that are based on the content of your website.
To add to WestWeb's post (with which I couldn't agree more, as a web designer) - many of us have pop-ups blocked. NOBODY likes them. In fact, I've got Adblock installed - so I don't see ads, period.
You can find MUCH cheaper hosting than MobileMe, BTW. Of course, if you like and use the other features of MobileMe, that's a different matter.
Pop-ups:
- Please correct me if i'm wrong: but I was/am under the impression that you get money for every pop-up a user sees
- compared to only getting money from an ad that is actually click, like in adsense
Type of Content: don't know if this will help
- The type of content on the side really is only useful to other student in my school program / new students entering the program
- The website hosts old problem sets with solutions, previous year quizzes, old midterms, study aids, etc...
Just some Thoughts:
- For the most part, users will not click on ads as they are only visiting the site to download the content
- this is why the website team was thinking to try to make the ad appear when someone clicks a download - although this wouldn't work if my impression of pop-up revenue is wrong
- Profit: we are not looking to make a large profit - really just trying to cover hosting fees. (& software fees in the future, there is planning to incorporate a forum later, and vbulliten costs a a lot)
Anyone experienced with website design and hosting experience:
- How do you make revenue / cover website costs with a website of this type?
- We have a user base, and we have them downloading content. But students don't have much cash to spare so a tip-jar is out of the question
Quite frankly, I doubt there is much potential for monetizing a site like that. Considering that the click rate on Adsense ads is pretty low (1% isn't unusual) you'd need thousands of new (not returning) visitors a month to make any money at all. Your best bet is to make the downloads donation-ware, if you really, really feel you must make some money off this. I work on reducing your costs - there are several ways to do that.
Google very clearly does NOT allow ads in popups, and I wouldn't advise anyone to pursue that anyway. It's the ultimate turnoff for your users.
How much storage do you need and what are your bandwidth requirements? I know of some very reasonable hosting alternatives to MobileMe.
And there is no need to go with vBulletin - PHPbb is free and very good and there are a few others too. And you can't put vBulletin on MobileMe anyway - it doesn't support PHP or the databases needed to run a forum.
So far the site features a database of 6 gigs worth of files. With plans for expansion 2 or 3 times that in the next year.
Currently the site is hosted on MobileMe as I already had a subscription and use it for its other features. Any recommendations on alternate web hosting services would be great. Especially ones that can support PHPbb or vBulletin.
As for bandwidth - I am not really sure how to monitor this on MobileMe, but will require much more in the next year.
So far the site features a database of 6 gigs worth of files. With plans for expansion 2 or 3 times that in the next year.
Currently the site is hosted on MobileMe as I already had a subscription and use it for its other features. Any recommendations on alternate web hosting services would be great. Especially ones that can support PHPbb or vBulletin.
As for bandwidth - I am not really sure how to monitor this on MobileMe, but will require much more in the next year.
That amount of required storage unfortunately vaults you into the upper echelons of paid hosting packages which don't promise "unlimited" storage/bandwidth. The shared hosting with "unlimited" bandwidth and storage are quite often a sham and delusion, by and large - promising the earth, moon and stars, but in reality expecting you to use very few resources. Once you start using serious amounts of storage or bandwidth, they tend to shut you down because you're consuming too much of the shared resources and affecting others on the server. I would check out Hostgator and Lunarpages and CALL them and tell them what you've told us and ask them if it will be a problem or not. If they say no, try and get it in writing.
Have you actually optimized all your files for the web? Considered converting as much as you can to HTML? (I realize that if you've got scientific formulas in there, this isn't practical)...somehow it just seems like a lot of STUFF.
Another thing you could do is get reasonable hosting (Dinsol have some great plans and I have a lot of clients there) and build the site and the forum on that but store your documents elsewhere - anywhere you can store large quantities of stuff reasonably with no bandwidth issues.
ForumMatrix - Compare Them All - though it's a bit misleading that SMF gets a "no" under the "Free and open source" category - it IS free - it just isn't released under a license certified by the Open Source Initiative and cannot be redistributed without permission. See: Simple Machines and Open Source
): it is against adsense TOS after all, and I don't think you want to go down that road.
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