Elena 
Tony over at Catholic Pillow Fight has always had a thing about ads on my blog. I’m not sure if he feels that way about all blogs, or if it’s just mine in particular he has a problem with. He has initiated several discussion with me about it.
With my post the other day about the drop in Google Page Rank and how it has affected my blog and future ability to make money through this blog, he’s almost giddy.
” Elena and I have gone round and round about this in the past. I enjoy her Catholic commentary which is intelligent, enlightening and sometimes gives me a different, though valid, point of view to ponder.
However, I have spoken to her about the paid blog posts. These are blog posts where she gets paid to review products on her blog. The products that she was reviewing had nothing to do with Catholicism. It’s like tuning into EWTN and getting an infomercial for rug cleaner. I read Elena’s blog via the GreatNews RSS reader which has substantial watch list capability which is able to be turned around to filter those posts that have the little “full disclosure” widget.
But Elena has mentioned that money made from her blog allows her to stay home and parent her children. I respect that. It is a holy and admirable decision. However, all decisions come with consequences.”
“Google has not only the right, but the responsibility to their stockholders to encourage the greatest number of people to use their search engine. The vast majority of searchers are not looking for Viagra ads when they are looking for Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, so search relevance is most important to them.”
I’d like to clarify a few things. This blog is called MY Domestic Church. Sure it’s about Catholicism because we are a profoundly Catholic family. But as the name also implies, this blog is also about issues and events that affect my Catholic family in our domestic church.
We homeschool too. That’s not a uniquely “Catholic” occupation, but I blog about it because that is part of our domestic life. I also blog about money (because what domestic home doesn’t have some concerns about money and finance) and about food, grief, health and fitness from my perspective as a middled aged mom. None of those things are uniquely “Catholic” but I blog about them because they do in my view affect domestic life. I just try to give it from a Catholic perspective.
Out of the 3600 posts I have made in four years, only 24 were Payperpost link ads. I tried to choose ops that I was interested in or that I thought would be of interest to my readers. Unlike Tony’s implication I WOULD NEVER take an op that went against my Catholic faith. But while EWTN probably wouldn’t be interested in showing an add for rug cleaner, a Catholic mom with oodles of kids tracking in and out of her front door might!
Several of my ads were about things for the home, like light bulbs, bike racks. A number of them were related to shopping and saving money, two things that affect families every day. Several of the ops I saw a direct connection to homeschoolers and that’s how I presented them. Probably the two with the biggest stretch were the ones about the dog getting sick and the air ambulance. Well, our dog really did get sick. All of that background in the ad was true. When Pepper really does pass from this earth you better believe there will be several more posts about her and how she added something of quality to our family as our pet. With the air ambulance op I immediately thought of Frankie’s trip from Ann Arbor to Cleveland last winter, as well as my cousins transport from upper Michigan to the Mayo Clinic for specialized tests.
I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do about the whole Google PR thing. Perhaps I’ll finally get some of these books I have in my office up on eBay. I know this week I’m not planning any Payperpost ads because it doesn’t seem appropriate considering the Holy Day and everything else.
But if I do decide to give up my career as a Postie, I can say that I will really miss it. That was a fun, easy way to make some extra money for my family. Replacing it is going to require more of my time away from just being a mom.
Please browse my eBay items!
Visit my new Amazon Store!
Heck- tell him to just skip it if you don’t want to read about it! I have a link on the faucet- something that interests me- a Catholic homemaker:>)
Keep up the blogging- in any way you see fit– IMHO
Janette, that is a valid option. And I agree that Elena ought to blog about whatever she wants because after all, it is her blog.
But I was under the impression that Elena wanted to maximize profits on her blog. Part of maximizing profits is understanding what works and what doesn’t.
I really am not giddy with regards to Elena’s page rank. I’d love to see her stumble on one of those internet money machines and make so much money doing this so that she and her husband never have to worry about money again. But I don’t think this is the way to do it.
There is really too much “stuff”.
In the interest of friendly assistance, I’m going to make a few suggestions.
#1. I pulled up the web page, and as soon as it loaded, all I saw was the big Halloween picture. Cute, but there is a lot of real estate that is not being used for impressions. I see a good 350px by 500px on the right hand side not being put to use.
#2. Firefox displays the page weirdly (unless Elena wanted to have the content to the left, and both side panels on the right).
#3. There is no rhyme or reason to the ad buttons. They’re not grouped in sections such as “Catholic links” “Home school links” “Mom links” etc. There’s things that flash, things that whirr, all kinds of things trying to catch my attention.
#4. All of the stuff that appears on the most valuable first page (well, second page because of the big Halloween picture) are things to subscribe to Elena, and most of the “subscribey” things subscribe you to feed readers where you get the full text of what Elena is posting (all the content, none of the ads that will make money).
#5. Half of the third page is the pay per post stuff. A HUGE (relatively) button is sending people to the pay per post site to sign up themselves. It isn’t making Elena a nickel (at least I don’t think it is, she’ll correct me in the next step).
#6. What is the most lucrative, and what is the least lucrative? The most lucrative should be near the top, and going to the least lucrative at the bottom. Things that make no money should be removed.
#7. Elena needs consistency in her theme with the buttons she uses. The best idea (the one I use) is to create my own buttons or simply use a text link. You can download GIMP for Windows (I use Linux).
This is not an indictment. This is web design and SEO (search engine optimizatoin) assistance. I can get paid a lot to do this, but I’m offering the assistance for free.
If Elena would like more help, I’ll be happy to work on a template with her to maximize the earning potential on her blog. She can try it or not. She can go back if it doesn’t work. She has my e-mail address.
Well it’s a work in progress. While I note Tony that you like a more minamilist look on your blog, I like my stuff. I have a feeling we would have a lot of conflicts over how to decorate a Christmas tree as well. I’m really into the lights and tinsel.
But it’s interesting to me that you take the opportunity on a post where I am basically defending myself (again) from one of your unprovoked attacks, to rip me a new one over… blog design? But wait it was the paid links that bothered you? Or is it the fact that it’s just not holy or hip at St. Blog’s to try and make a buck while blogging.
And while I value your input, I can’t help but think how much nicer it would have been to receive them in an e-mail months ago along the lines of
Dear Elena,
I noticed you were tweaking your blog and I thought I would offer you my assistance.
Your friend, Tony
Just a thought but that might have been a more… diplomatic way to proceed.
Catholic Pillowfight- nice idea, but I think you should take some of the rocks out of the case before you start swinging them at people who are basically on your side.
Hey, I wanna do this too, ha!! What stay at home mom doesn’t worry about finances?? I know I do and sending my kids to a private Catholic school, um.. not easy.. you do what you have to do for your family Elena and don’t worry, I don’t have any trouble reading your blog, so don’t give it another thought!
But wait it was the paid links that bothered you? Or is it the fact that it’s just not holy or hip at St. Blog’s to try and make a buck while blogging.
I can see this isn’t working. I’ll shut up now.
FWIW, I’ve never minded the ads. Actually, I appreciated that you didn’t seem to slap up a quickie ad, but had taken the time to personalize what you were endorsing. I remember on one you said “I liked this and this feature” which indicated that you had really looked around at the place you were promoting.
Now, I’ve never clicked on through, but I don’t mind them either.
I’ll shut up now
Oh I knew we could find something to agree on!
Elena,
some people don’t know what to blog about so they stumble across a blog one day, read or see something that makes them kind of twitchy and voila! Blogging material = Blog post!
I will be honest with you about the ads though…. I am only really interested in your faith/family posts and I never look at either of the columns with advertisements in them or the advertiposts you write (partly because I live in the UK and they are largely not relevent/practical to me)…..but if visitors do click on them and somehow you can make a little money for your family, more power to you!
(((hugs)))