I started One Frugal Girl as a simple means to document my relationship with money. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly six years since I wrote my first post! I am grateful to everyone who leaves comments or sends me emails. I’ve grown to know a number of bloggers and commenters personally. One or two have even rented my beach house in North Carolina.
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Since this blog was never about anything other than telling my story I’ve never tried to make much money from writing it. However, now that I want to stay home with my son I’m thinking more and more about permitting additional advertisements on the sidebar.
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Any money that I earn would be thrown towards our health insurance. Even a few hundred a month would make a dent in the overall bill.
I must admit that I rarely notice the advertisements on the blogs I read, but a very messy blog inundated with ads is a real turnoff for me.
What do you think about blogs with a lot advertisements? Do they make you less likely to read them? Would you still read One Frugal Girl if I added them?
I just recently started putting ads on my blog, and it has worked out well.
I hardly even notice when people have ads, so I say go for it!
go for it! I think most of us understand you're not an upstart blogger out to only make money, you still will write the same kind of posts and the money is an added bonus. š I think your readers will be more understanding, too, because we know your situation and how advertisements will help your family. š good luck!
If it's done tastefully, it doesn't bother me at all.
I struggle with this! I have companies willing to pay 300 to 400 per link! if you do it, don't over do it..
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Thanks for the advice. I'll try to keep the blog looking good. If it gets tacky hopefully one of you will let me know!
Ads don't bother me. I mostly read the blog through Google Reader, and even there I find the ads easy to ignore. Although that might not be what the advertisers want to hear!
It sounds like your health insurance premium is a decent chunk of money each month. I think ads may lead to extra money and that's always a good thing. I think your readers won't mind.
The only ads that bother me are the pop-ups that appear in the middle of the screen, where I have to click the 'X' to get them to go away. I also hate the ones that automatically play sound when you are on the site. Both of those are deal-breakers for me and I close the link immediately and stop visiting the site if those kinds of ads are there. Otherwise, I don't mind. I even click on some of the ads in the side bar, as long as they are quiet and stay on the side.
I think as long as the ads don't mess in the blog text, why not? You might also consider making a donation link?