Monetizing your blogs & information websites

I just read John Chow's article on when you should put ads on your blog, and I kind liked it. He says what I have always believed, you should place the ads on your blog or information website from the get go. I stress "information website" because, if you are selling a product or service, try to keep ads off the site in order to keep customers on the site. Blogs are a perfect way to make extra money with ads, because you are providing information, not sales.

By placing ads on your new web design from the start will allow you to design the website around the advertisements. The more professionally you can incorporate ads into your web design, the better. You don't want your web design to look like the ads were an afterthought, and you want every element on your web page to flow naturally, including advertisements.

I do, however, disagree with his stance on "don't be afraid of too many ads", I think too many ads can detract from the aesthetics of the site. Too many ads can make your web site too cluttered, and I like a clean site with concise CTAs. Randomly generated ads are often very colorful and designed to get the user's attention and may not gel with the rest of your site. If yo have 6 or 7 elements on your new web design that don't look like the belong your web page can begin to look like some crazy, cluttered classified pages in a penny shopper.

Mr. Chow is a guy who knows his stuff, he is the creator of TTZMedia, and I don't wanna discourage anyone from monetizing their websites. From a web design standpoint, advertisements can clutter and destroy the visual effect you have achieved with your information layout and color palette, which is a part of your branding campaign.