As bloggers, many of us rely on adverts for income. A new danger is shadowing that income though; the ad blockers. We have already asked whether ad blocking is moral or not, but regardless of the answer, people will continue to use it.

If you’re looking to protect your income, you need a solution to this problem. Blocking all FireFox users is not a good solution, and even blocking only those using the extension isn’t ideal either.

The Answer Is To Hide an Image

In the morality discussion, we came to the conclusion that whilst ad blocking may not be moral, and while it may damage the internet as a whole, it will continue to be used because it suits individuals. And therein lies the answer.

Advertising and readership are the two things that most bloggers are trying to promote. The thing that isn’t always realised is that you can’t promote both advertising and readership. It is either advertising or readership.

Your blog’s layout contains a number of hotspots. Content in these hotspots, such as that above the fold, is looked at (And then acted upon) more often than content in other locations. It is important to realise that each hotspot can only contain one type of content; either adverts or readership promotion.

Promoting Readership

By choosing to build readership, you are actively choosing to put your adverts into locations where they will perform worse, for the benefit of your readers. In this way, you can more easily encourage readers to subscribe, or simply browse in non-commercial peace. In this way you are hoping to build up a good audience, discussion and contacts.

This approach is best recommended for blogs still in their infancy. You will only continue writing the blog if you feel people are actually reading, and benefiting from it. With small audience, your profits are going to be meagre no matter how well you place them, so why damage your blog’s growth potential?