[This is part of a series following on from a post called “Business Blog Design“]

I see so many blogs that are clearly well thought out in terms of their content and seem to have a lot of things going for them which then go and spoil it by plastering Google AdWords adverts or other onpage advertising all over their blog.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against onpage advertising per se – it’s a perfectly good way of developing revenue from a blog, albeit one that is seeing diminishing returns for those who are merely “dabbling” with it, rather than looking at it as a business activity.

Planning and Goals
Once again, it comes down to the planning process and your blog’s goals. If you are looking to have a blog which has a primary goal of using onpage advertising to generate revenue, then of course you are going to make best use of the key areas on your blog and populate them with suitable advertising banners and links.

If, however, you are using a blog to promote your business and develop relationships with your clients, then this advertising is likely to be both distracting and detrimental to your activities. In addition, the advertising needs to be prominent to work well and so will need to occupy the space that you would otherwise use for elements of your own business that you want to promote. Basically, you will be using your blog’s key areas to market somebody else’s products rather than your own!

Change of Mentality
It also changes your mentality when you write and promote your blog. If you are writing a blog which is strictly focused on your specialism and your industry, then creating content which will be of interest to this type of reader will be your main concern, no matter what size of market this represents.

However, the general strategy behind a successful onpage advertising campaign is always going to be a numbers game, therefore the more visitors you attract the greater the number of clicks you will achieve. This means that you are more likely to be looking at posts with a wider appeal or perhaps more contentious ones which will attract more attention … but for attention’s sake. Equally, your blog promotional strategy will need to be focused more on quantity of visitors rather than on quality, again distracting you from targeting readers who would be most beneficial to your own business.

So, overall, if you are intending to use onpage advertising and are serious about doing so, then make that the focus of your blog following all the principles of placement and use of key “real estate” areas that we have discussed elsewhere in this series. However, if your business blog is intended to develop additional contacts and marketing opportunities, then avoid distracting your readers with adverts for other people’s products and concentrate on helping them discover your own.

If you intend to use onpage advertising then make it the focus of your blog – if not, then avoid it !

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Related posts:

1. Business Blog Design
2. Blog Design Series – a Business perspective
3. Business Blog Design: Generic Blog Templates