Have you noticed a decline in
your AdSense or other ads earning, even when your traffic is same or got better?
Well, you are not alone as this is happening with all the bloggers around the
globe & in this article you will learn why this is happening & how to fix it.
Ad blocking technology (Which blocks ad display) is making the life of upcoming
& existing bloggers (Including you) challenging by affecting the overall blog
revenue. It’s true that Adblockers make web surfing faster & more enjoyable
experience, but at the cost of revenue for bloggers & web-publishers.
Many bloggers like us understand that by not blocking ads, we are supporting
bloggers & encouraging them to churn out more compelling content. But, still a
majority of internet users use Ad-blocker to have a smooth web experience. I
don’t even blame them, as it’s annoying when you open a website & it shows
multiple pop-up ads & is full of ads. But, how do innocent bloggers like you &
me whose blog revenue is going down due to increased use of Adblocker?
Recently, you might have heard a lot of chatter about Adblocker on iPhone as
Apple allows ad blocker apps to be a part of app store & one can also block ads
on Apple devices. Today, you will be learning tips on preventing Adblock from
hurting your revenue & so that you don’t have to shut down your blog due to less
or almost negligible revenue.
I can’t think of a platform better than ShoutMeLoud to talk about Adblockers
where a majority of us are bloggers and are interested in earning money online.
Here I’m sharing tips which I have researched, used & would love to hear your
tips on how you are tackling this serious issue of Adblocking on your blog.
When it comes to monetization, we can divide blogs into 3 major categories.
The first are blogs based on affiliate marketing to earn money.
The second are blogs which are managed by a brand.
The last one are the blogs who rely on third party advertising (such as AdSense)
to earn money.
Many of us who starts with blogging belongs to the third category. We use
AdSense or other Advertising networks to generate revenue from our blog. Harsh
has already covered AdSense and other ad networks very well in the past.
Basically, ad networks work like this: You sign up for their service and enter
the code they provide in your Theme or widgets. When a visitor loads your page,
the ads are loaded and shown to the visitor. If the visitor clicks on any ad,
you get paid. All these steps are crucial for you to earn money. If any of the
above steps goes wrong, you won’t be paid. Now Adblocker is the culprit that is
not allowing the ads to load on your page.
If you are from the third category, your blogging business is under a heavy
risk. Before talking about the solution to the problem, let’s clarify what
AdBlocking is and how it works.
What [the Heck] are Adblockers?
In simple terms, an adblocker is a software, browser extension or a mobile app
that blocks ads from being loaded on a page. If you have an adblocker extension
installed on your web browser, you will see a blank space in place of
advertisements. This removes the clutter (sometimes annoyances) from a web page
and it speeds up the page loading time for a visitor. For a publisher (in this
case, you) it just stops any ad impression & you won’t make any money from such
views.
If you want to know more about this, I recommend reading this masterpiece by
Nilay Patel, where he has shared great insights on the effect of AdBlocking in
future for Web & publishers.
How to tell if your blog is affected by Adblockers?
Well, all blogs who rely on third party advertisements like AdSense are already
affected by ad blockers. To know how much is your blog affected, you can just
compare your Google Analytics Pageviews and Google AdSense Page views. If you
see a difference you know it.
AdBlocking software mostly affects blogs who have tech savvy readers as most of
the visitors are smart & prefer using AdBlock software’s.
So, how to save your blog from Adblockers
As AdBlocking is growing rapidly, it is a good idea to follow the
below-mentioned steps. There are many levels on which you can work; Beginning
from requesting a user or stopping him from browsing any page.
Move to Native Advertising
Native advertising is the surest way to not let ad blockers eat your blog.
AdBlocking software works by reading the page code and comparing it with a list
of advertisements. If they find a match, they stop loading that object. In the
case of Native Advertising, all the advertisement resources (images, videos) are
stored on your own host and hence they cannot be blocked.
Harsh has already covered more on this topic here. You can make a page related
to advertising ( Popularly known as media-kit) on your blog. Be sure to include
your page views, social media followers, and subscribers so that the potential
advertiser can understand your impact on the internet.
Rely more on Affiliate Marketing
We often talk about affiliate marketing on ShoutMeLoud, it is a way to earn
money by referring a service/product to our visitors. Just like native
advertising, resources used in this (such as banners) are stored on our own
hosting and hence it cannot be removed by ad blockers.
Master the art of Affiliate marketing with this exclusive eBook.
Create a Mobile App
create mobile app to prevent adblocking
More than 50% searches on Google are done from mobile phones. If you have a
mobile app for your blog, it will be tough for a user to block advertisements.
Quality apps run on their own and don’t rely on the web browser and hence they
cannot be affected by any Adblock plugin installed on Phone.
I am sure that creating a good app for Android or iOS will cost you some
hard-earned bucks, but once it is all set, it will give you an assurance that
your hosting resources are not being wasted on someone using Adblock.
WordPress Plugins To Disable Adblocker:
Notify and Request users to whitelist your site or Disable Adblock
Many free WordPress plugins are available on WordPress Plugin repository for
this. You can show a message or a notification to a visitor asking him to
whitelist your Blog. The message will only be shown to users who are using an
AdBlocking plugin. So, you don’t have to worry about your loyal readers being
distracted by this. After disabling the AdBlocking Plugin or Whitelisting your
site, when the visitor refreshes the page, he won’t see the message again.
Here is what I use on Getting Geek:
Whitelist Getting Geek on Adblock
We know Ads suck, but at Getting Geek we have tried to not let them to that. Ad
blocking is a good idea to get rid of stupid “Download Now” Buttons around the
web, that’s not in our case. We think you won’t find Ads on our site terrible.
Support us by Whitelisting Getting Geek on your AdBlocking Plugin or by
disabling your AdBlocking software.
AdBlock warning
If you are using this tactic, please try to make your message Impressive, a nice
request (or warning) will definitely make it good for the blog.
The best WordPress Plugins that can do this is: Adblock Notify by B*web or
Simple Adblock Detector
Stop Adblockers from seeing your post
This is a really aggressive approach where you can prevent AdBlocking visitors
from seeing your content entirely. Personally, I recommend not to use it but
it’s an option which is good to know. If you are into this, you can do that
easily by using the Adblock Notify by B*web plugin. (Link shared in above
point).
After installing the plugin, you need to create a page notifying why the
visitors can’t access the post and how can they do that. Later, after publishing
the page set your Plugin to redirect all users with Adblock to the new page.
Find new ways to earn from your blog
Advertising is not the only way to squeeze money out of internet. You can do a
lot more other things to earn money from your blogs. The notable things that you
can try are paid reviews, sponsored posts and setting up a merchandise store
into your blog. We should remember that we are also a reason that AdBlocking
software are becoming so popular, we need to adapt new ways, do experiments and
ensure your blog can survive in future.
Apart from the ways that I shared with you, do you know any other way of
fighting AdBlocking? If yes, please share with me in the comments below. Also
don’t forget to ask any question related to this topic.