When you first start a website.  Do not monetize.  Do not put up any ads.  First get a steady traffic base and then put up ads.

That is the recommendation that you will hear often.  I heard it too.  But I did not do it that way.  From day one there have been ads on the website. 

Like B.F. Skinner’s piano playing pigeons, I need to be constantly rewarded to perform a task.  The pigeons learned to play a toy piano by being given a treat when they hit the correct key.  I make updates to the website when an ad is clicked.

For me to create the website, post on forums, answer emails, for months without gain would be very difficult.  Make an update to website, get a treat.  Make a another update, get another treat.  This is the way I operate.  Like a pigeon.

So I put three ad zones on the website on day one.  Graphic banner on the left, unit ad on the top, and text ad on the right.  The website has been up for 26 days with 517 visitors.  Here are the earnings results for the different ad zones:

• Left Banner Ad: $5.38
• Top Unit Ad: $2.50
• Right Text Ad: $15.83

You can see the text ad on the right is the clear winner.  The unit ad on  the top is far behind.  Time to get rid of it.

Too Many Ads Increases Bounce

Not only does it not make any money, it also makes the site look cluttered.  The home page looks messy  – smothered by ads.  This is a major turn off for a lot of visitors.  They think to themselves, “This guy is only concerned with making money.”  I am.  But the visitors should not know that.

The clutter of ads on the website might explain the high bounce rate.  Currently 50% of the visitors land on my homepage and without looking at any other pages they leave.  They come in, look at the mess, and leave.

So, I will remove the unit ad.  This will:

• Make the site look cleaner
• Decrease the bounce rate
• Increase revenue

How will removing an ad increase revenue?  By removing the ad, the page will be less cluttered.  The visitor will be more willing to look at the other pages instead of leaving.

More Page Views By Reducing Bounce

Lets guess that had the unit ad not been there from the beginning, the bounce rate would be 10% lower as a result.  10% of all my visitors would not have bounced off the site, instead they looked at more pages. 

• Total visitors is 517
• 10% of 517 is 51 visitors
• Average page views per visitor is 2.83

Therefore instead of these 51 visitor just seeing 1 page and bouncing off, they would see   2.83 pages.  51 * 2.83 =  147 pages.  Now all we have to do is subtract the 51 pages that the bouncers already saw and we have 96 additional page views.  96 more page views by reducing the bounce rate by 10%.

How Does That Translate Into Earnings?

• Total Page Views: 1445
• Total Revenue Ads (minus Unit Ad): $21.20
• Revenue/Page View: $0.0146

So we multiply 96 additional pages by $0.0146 and we have $1.40.  Because of that unit ad I lost $1.40 of revenue.  Does not sound like much until you consider that it represents a 6.6% of my total revenue.  Reduce the number of ads and increase revenue by 6.6%.

Today I removed the unit ad.  In a future post we will see whether the bounce rate has decreased and revenue/pageview increased.   It will.

About Revenue, Earnings, Money, What YOU Expect vs Reality, What YOU Should Do