Having good web traffic, you might want to sell ads on your blog or website. That’s, getting paid for displaying ads. While there are many options regarding web ads, the story with WordPress.com is a little different. If you’re not hosting on WordPress.com (up to premium plan), please refer to “Web Developing Issues” from my old post “How to leave Google” for some alternatives.
Now, let’s talk about WordPress.com…
Sell ads on your blog directly
Simple, effective, and it doesn’t affect performance of your site/blog. You can sell link advertising such as side banners or links/banners at the end of posts. Or, you can sell promotional or marketing posts such as reviewing products or services.
WordAds
WordAds is managed by WordPress itself. They are banners in header, sidebar, and below or in between posts. These positions vary from theme to theme, e.g., some themes don’t support top banners. Videos are another type of ads that are being served below or in between posts (I haven’t noticed any video ads lately). As a premium user, you have the option to hide those ads or to get paid for keeping them displayed. Upgrading to Business Plan – Check WordPress Plans, you have more tools to manipulate this.
Yet I believe that I optimized my WordPress to the max, PageSpeed Insights analysis shows a decrease of speed and thus performance when ads are on. The good news is that logged-in users may not notice this as they already have some components cached locally on their computers.
Google AdSense
My tests showed generally better performance scores when I used Google AdSense instead of WordAds. To use Adsense with WordPress.com, you have to be on their Business Plan.
The issue is that to comply with laws and privacy policies regarding advertising (and statistics), extra setups might be needed such as consent messages. Showing these messages involves extra scripts which affect the site’s performance negatively. While you can delay executions of scripts related to ads to enhance site’s speed, the revenue might be affected. In WordAds, these messages are part of the system and its effect is almost included.
Summary
Displaying third-parties ads is actually affecting the performance of the site. To minimize effects, avoid ads on homepage and on top of the pages. Further, use only one advertising system. If you’re able, use one unified consent messages system. Try to have the scripts at the footer of your pages; some might argue this is similar to deferring the script, but personally, it worked fine with Adsense/WordAds.
Should we scarify the ads’ revenue for better performance? And the important question is: Do you sell ads on your blog other than Google’s or the ones provided by WordPress? Let’s know; I’d be interesting in advertising with you 🙂
No I don’t
And I never will
I think this does make sense. It affects performance and no good returns! Thank you for commenting
Nicely written
Yeah that’s exactly what my opinion is. Thanks for replying Mohammad Al Karbi.☺
Can display adds on a subdomain blog…..
Hi Hillsbits, I’m not sure I got your question well. WordPress will display ads on your blog. If you’re premium, you’ll get a share from the earnings.
And if you are on free
If you’re on free, you’ll get no share from the earnings. You pay to remove ads or to get a share from their earnings. Any way, free accounts usually won’t have large amounts of ads (bothering ads). WordPress display ads (or more ads) on free blogs when the traffic is increasing…
Right now, my site doesn’t display ads. Not sure, based on your overall statement about slowing the site down, that I should do that?
Hi Marie, I’m pretty sure that there were some performance issues with ads when I wrote this post. I believe the situation is better now. Generally speaking, displaying ads will affect performance. Hopefully it won’t be noticeable. You can test it yourself; try it for two months and see…
I don’t have a choice. I have a free WordPress account & there’s ads whether I want them or not. & of course I don’t want them.
Thank you very much. You need to upgrade your WordPress account to remove ads or to share the revenue with them. Anyway, even with free WordPress account, you’re still able to sell ads directly to others. I can see good traffic on your blog 🙂
Hi I display ads and the revenue I receive pays for domain registration, server space, special email account, membership fees for special organizations and so on. My site pays for itself, with a a little extra to spare. My question is can one control the number of ads dropped on a page and can one create markers in WordPress where I want to place the ads?
Hi there. Thank you for your comment. Actually, this is the best strategy, i.e., the site pays for itself. Regarding your question considering you’re on WordPress.com, as far as I know, WordAds displays one ad per page using specific layout (after post, in-between archive/search, at the end of page, …). You can disable any in admin area. You can also add extra ad widgets on pages only or on widgets’ area. Further, you can use the short code [wordads] on pages or inside post to display extra ads. If you’re on Business Plan or self-hosting with Jetpack installed, you can manipulate all of these using snippets on function.php.
Very helpful.
Thank you very much. Glad that you find it helpful
No, I don’t. I originally started my blog to “sell” my services so I didn’t like the idea of “double” selling. 🙂 Sometimes ads on blogs prevent me from seeing/reading the blog so I am not a big fan of ads on blogs. I understand why people have them though.
Thank you, Terre. You have very valid point. A lot would pay to remove ads. From performance perspective, it considered good practices to show 1-2 ad per page maximum. Otherwise, it’d would be a mess and confuse the reading experience as you mentioned. I like your blog <3
BTW, why you don’t list your blog site on my directory (https://mohamadkarbi.com/directory/); I’d be pleased and honored. Hope it’d also help you selling even more 🙂