Ad companies promise you the world. They make you picture yourself going to sleep and waking up to a couple hundred
dollars that you literally earned overnight while you were asleep. It is the ultimate dream; making thousands of dollars every month while doing nothing. The truth is, in the real world, things don’t work that way. Ads are not what they are all cracked up to be. They could be a waste of your time, and also lower the value of your content.
If you are serious about monetizing your blog and making good money online, you need to consider staying away from ads. They are not always a good option and could pose a trap that so many online businesses fall into. With this article, I will show you why ads may bad for you, and also how to monetize your blog without ads. Let’s begin.
WHY ADS COULD BE BAD FOR BUSINESS
There are many reasons why ads could be bad for a blogging business. If you think putting up a few ads on your site then sitting back and waiting for the money to come is the way to go, think again. Here are a few reasons why this is not always smart:
1. Ads Are Distracting
If you want your blog to be successful, you need your readers to completely focus their attention on your content so that they can appreciate how great it is. By having ads, you are adding stuff that competes with your content. Ads distract your readers and take away from the hard work you have put into crafting that high-quality content.
2. Ads Pay Really Low
If you take the example of Google AdSense, which is the most popular ad generating platform, you will find that the numbers are sadly disappointing. Let’s do the math:
The average click-through rate (CTR) is 0.1%. This means that for every 1000 unique visits, expect 1 ad click. The average cost-per-click (CPC) for ads varies depending on a lot of factors. Let’s be generous and assume you earn $1 per click.
That means you need 1000 unique visitors every day to get the one click you need to earn your $1. 30,000 visits every month earn you $30.
If you have a blog that gives you 1000 unique visitors every day, you can definitely make way more than $1 per day doing something else. Ads need lots of traffic to be worthwhile. However, when you get to the level where you have that much traffic, there are far better income streams to explore.
3. Ads Lower Your Conversion Rate
Ideally, after your readers read your post, you want them to perform a specific action, for example, sign up to your mailing list. These actions are called Calls to Action. However, an ad is also a Call to Action. When your reader responds to it, you lose that reader and a potential revenue source. Instead of a reader doing what you want them to do, they act upon another option on your site.
4. Ads Lower Your Brand’s Value
Even if you have very high-quality content, ads have a way of cheapening it. Readers hate ads. Filling your site with ads will make most readers close the Window as soon as it loads, making you lose a huge amount of potential revenue. It doesn’t matter how successful your blog is. If you populate it with ads, you only end up losing.
5. Ads Limit Your Freedom
One of the main reasons why people get into online business is because they are seeking some form of freedom. You want to be your own boss. However, if your primary source of revenue is ads, you are not your own boss. Google (or whoever is placing your ads) is your boss. And you cannot ask for a raise or ask to get paid before you make a specific amount of money. Or if you do not do everything their T&Cs; say, you risk losing your entire pay period earnings. Not the sort of freedom you were looking for, huh?
6. Ads Mess Up Your Site’s Aesthetics
Most times, you have no control over what an ad looks like. If you were going for a particular look or color scheme or specific brand image, all that goes out the window once your ads go up. Since most people judge your site from the first impression they get from it, having ads taints this image and makes fewer people want to stick around.
7. Ads Slow Down Your Site
Studies have shown that most website visitors will not stick around if it does not completely load within 3 seconds. Ads slow down your site and increase your average bounce rate, which is really bad for business.
IS THERE SOMETHING BETTER?
So now that we have determined how bad ads could be, is there a better option? What else can you do to monetize your blog, without ads being part of the mix? Well, here are a few options you can consider:
1. WRITE AND SELL EBOOKS
E-books can be an amazing way to share your knowledge and earn a little extra passive income while at it. What field are you an expert in? What topic can you confidently talk about with little to no preparation? Writing a book will generate you income in perpetuity. It is a great source of passive income, where once every few days or months you will be pleasantly surprised to find that you have made some money selling something you created a long time ago.
Once you write your eBook, you can sell it on your blog or a platform like Amazon Kindle, or both. If you have a popular blog, you even can compile your existing content and create an eBook. This saves you the time you otherwise would have had to spend coming up with original content from scratch.
2. MONETIZE YOUR SKILLS
What are you really good at? Your blog is a wonderful platform to advertise your skills from and make money off them. 
Here is an example. If your text content is really good, and you are already quite knowledgeable in your niche, you could become a niche article writer and sell this skill to your audience at a premium price. Since they will be guaranteed to get an author who knows what they are talking about, and they can already see lots of writing samples on your blog, you can negotiate a good price for your services.
You can also contact similar blogs in your niche and offer them your writing services. They are always on the lookout for good niche article writers. Plus, you can get to guest post on their platforms and gain a larger audience.
Other services can be monetized in the same way. You can offer to perform specific tasks for a fee, for example, if you offer design services, you can ask your readers to hire you.
You can also compile your skills into a course and offer this to your audience. Selling courses has become very popular among online businesses in recent years, mainly because there is almost no limit to how much you can earn. The more people sign up, the more money you stand to make.
3. REVIEWS
You can review products on your website. Make sure that the reviews are in-depth and unbiased. You should only review products (physical or digital) that you have actually tried. Your audience will start to rely on your objective recommendations. You can monetize this by referring your readers to the best reviewed products on your blog.
As a side benefit, you will probably receive free stuff to review from companies. Just make sure that you let these companies know that they are not guaranteed a good review just because they sent you the items for free.
4. GOING PREMIUM
If you absolutely have to keep your ads, you can add a paid membership option to your site where premium account holders can elect to view content without ads. Just make sure to also offer tailor-made content that is of higher value to make readers who pay feel like they are getting the value for their money. Taking this direction only makes sense if your ads are making you way too much money for you to simply get rid of them.
5. AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize a blog without using ads. It is a business model that allows you to earn a commission by promoting someone else’s products. I am a firm believer in the power of affiliate marketing. It is one of the most efficient and best-paying ways to make money from your site, with very many benefits.
Through affiliate marketing, you finally get to be your own boss and run your own business on your own terms. Ads and a few other business models, like freelancing for example, still take away your freedom in some way. Affiliate marketing sets you free, so you can get to choose the products you want and work when you want, how you want. Everything is on your own terms.
Setting up your blog for your affiliate marketing business is also very easy. All you need to do is sign up for the affiliate marketing program of your choice and start selling. Literally anyone with an internet connected device can do it! With almost zero operational costs, it is one of the few monetization strategies that are just perfect for you no matter who you are.
A few other benefits of affiliate marketing include the fact that it needs no prior experience, it promises job and financial security, it minimizes risk, and it has an uncapped earning potential.
Affiliate marketing has the potential to be one of the most lucrative monetization strategies you will ever look into. However, you need to be patient, smart and persistent about it. All the content you produce needs to be valuable to your readers because affiliate marketing relies on traffic and trust. A large number of people that trust you coming to your site every day is the ultimate recipe for success.
As an affiliate marketer, strive to learn consistently and implement those lessons in your niche. Always ask yourself what you can do to better your position in this business, and go looking for the answer to that question. You will soon find that your blog is making you enough money to support any lifestyle you choose to have.
START EARNING MONEY ONLINE NOW!
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you are a serious blogger, and if you want to be taken seriously in your niche, consider staying away from ads. You deserve to make money from your blog. You work really hard on it. However, do not fall for the common mistake of thinking blogs ads will make you rich. There are far better and more efficient monetization methods that you can take advantage of today.
Your blog space is valuable. Do not cheapen it by promoting ads for products you have never even used. Use that space to promote something you are proud of, whether it is your content, your other businesses, your own products, or as an affiliate marketer. Make sure your site looks good, and you feel good about it. This is the surest path to success.
If you need some help with affiliate marketing I would like to make you a recommendation. It is a complete soup to nuts affiliate marketing training community. In fact, it is the same training that I have taken to start and maintain my online business. It is free and there are no strings attached. You can start earning and learning in the next 5 minutes! This is a major opportunity at starting your journey to financial freedom!
Here is an example of the education and tools you will have access to. This is a video showing you how to build a website from scratch in under 1 minute!
CLICK HERE NOT TO CHECK OUT MY #1 RECOMMENDED AFFILIATE MARKETING TRAINING PROGRAM!
What do you think about ads? Leave me comments or questions below!
To your affiliate success!
Mike