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I’ll tell you. About two years ago, these signs started popping up all over Fargo as a new and convenient way of marketing. I have to say that the very first bright, neon signs I saw like this did catch my attention and cause me to stop and read them. The problem was that after a little while, others thought they would make some money with this new and successful advertisement and set out to replicate the success of the originator. I am not sure exactly how much it costs to put one of these signs in front of your business. I believe about $150 / week. As you can see, it would only take about two weeks to recover the cost of the materials used to make and alter the sign’s message, then pure profit.

The major problem now is that the novelty of these signs wore off and now they are just like all the other billboards in town begging to interrupt our lives in the hopes of selling us something. The bang for the buck advertisements these signs once had is now gone. They only attract the people who were already looking for whatever is being sold. What are people to do now when they want to get their message out about a new deal or gizmo? Doing something different works for a while, but that requires lots and lots of change to stay ahead. How does this relate to online advertising?

Remember when the fold down ad corners popped up online and everyone went crazy to stick ads in there because people were intrigued? Well, that novelty has worn off and pretty quick I might add. Or how about Google Adsense? It is no wonder Google always has to invent new ways and places to stick ads in order to keep up ad generated revenue. Ads in video, ads on the sidebar, ads in email, ads on their own version of Wikipedia now named Knol, ads on cellphones and the list will go on.

What if, and I mean a big what-if, you took all of the money you planned to spend on advertising and interrupting people’s lives and used that money to better your service or product. You would probably end up with a product that people will start talking about because it has become truly useful or over the top in a way that will separate itself from anything similar to it. It would be like spending the time to run a free clinic to get people interested in a sport or new hobby. The end result could be more sales of your product for helping others get involved, or perhaps more recognition as an authority on the subject increasing your demand.

A funny thing happens when your demand goes up, so does your salary. This will never happen overnight, but it will eventually happen as you increase the value you contribute to others. In other words, you separate yourself from the pack and distinguish yourself or product, allowing for people to talk about it openly. When was the last time someone was ecstatic about the McDonald’s dollar menu and told you about it?

edit* If you don’t have these signs in your town yet, you could make a lot of money by being the first to start.

This is a guest post brought to you by Shaun Connell, webmaster of Make Money, a free resource for those who want to make money online and think outside the “money box.” Find out what the money box is by visiting the site.

Don’t get me wrong, AdSense paid me my first check. For doing that, they’ll always have a special place in my heart. But unfortunately, most bloggers rely on AdSense as their primary way of earning an income for their main blog. AdSense is fantastic, but should it be your primary source of income? Let’s do some casual number crunching to see.

This is Why I Hate Algebra

Let’s say you want to make a $100 a day with your primary site. To find out how much it will take to get there, you’ll use a super simple formula that looks something like this:

[AdSense cpm]*[x traffic]=100

If the AdSense CPM is $10, your formula will look like this: 10*[x]=100 which means this: 10*[10]=100.

This isn’t just gibberish. The “x” stands for “thousands of impressions,” meaning if you make a whopping $10 per thousand visitors, you’ll need 10,000 impressions before you make your $100. How many impressions do you serve? This is a vital question for understanding potential AdSense earnings.

How Many Baskets do You Have?

That’s nothing to sneeze at. It takes a lot of work to generate a constant 10,000 impressions a day, but the fact is that most websites, even by the pros, won’t generate that much. So what to do? Just remember the age old advice of financial planners:

Always Diversify.

Day traders always argue that you should diversify, never putting all of the proverbial eggs in one basket. If you diversify, it’s harder to get wiped out, and even if most stocks go down, at least some will go up. It’s just safer.

The same concept applies to internet marketing. Diversify. Sell ads, sell an affiliate program, just diversify. AdSense is a great supplement, but compared to the other monetizaton strategies, it simply shouldn’t be your primary focus.

Look at it this way: Let’s say you are selling an affiliate package worth 100 bucks, and when you make a sale, you get 50 bucks. You get 10,000 impressions a day from 5,000 visitors. Of that 5,000, only 1,000 end up clicking through your affiliate link. Supposing you get the typical 1% conversion rate, you’ll make 500 bucks, which means you’ll be making well over a 100k per year.

Last Words

In light of the above numbers, a lot of people have turned AdSense off all together. I decided to take AdSense off my main website, even though I wouldn’t go as far as Chris Pearson when he said, “[AdSense] is quite literally the worst monetization service of all time for people who don’t have millions of pageviews per month.”

AdSense is helpful, but it should only be a small part of your earnings. Do the numbers, and figure out how to launch your traffic into an income. Test the waters, try out programs and increase your earnings.

You may have noticed that I have a single Project Wonderful ad on the left side of the blog. I decided to only place one ad there because I can’t stand sites with 20 Google ads blocking all of the content. I also feel that if you are trying to provide a quality blog that adds value to the readers, you should not plaster it with ads.

On the other hand, if you are trying to make money from a semi-static webpage, you are doing the right thing by covering it with Google ads. You are focusing on quantity instead of quality. I read a report done on some A-list blogs that said some of these blogs use up to 30% of the front page for advertising space. Way too much space is being consumed with ads on these sites, and any of the frequent visitors will eventually learn to navigate the site without clicking ads. I believe if there were 4-5 well placed ads of different sorts on the site, there would be a much higher demand for the space while generating roughly the same income. The advertisers would in change be getting a lot higher CTR, since there would be fewer ads displayed to begin with. On some of the blogs that I frequent, advertisers have purchased 2-3 ad spots on the front alone page.

I have been doing a little experiment of my own between Project Wonderful and Google Adsense. On my blog I am going to be running Project Wonderland and on my girlfriend’s blog That Mutt I will be running Google Adsense to see which service is the best for up-and-coming blogs. I will continue the tradition of sharing my findings and experiments with everyone here. I will be promoting each blog equally and with the same zeal. I would like to know how each of these services have worked for you. Leave me a comment and let me know.