How To Kill Your Credibility with Google Ads
My colleague, Dan Janal, runs a great operation with his company PRLEADS. His company focuses on helping individuals get quoted in top-notch publications. I know many people that use Dan’s company and get great results and are quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Business Week to just name a few. I met Dan and he does run a great operation that provides terrific value.
Some time ago, Dan started a new blog by the name of: Cool Book of the Day, which actually is a great idea, allowing authors to feature their books. However, I have two key issues with this blog:
The first is Dan’s decision to use Google ads in an attempt to possibly make money. Please look at the first two screen shots (click on the images to enlarge) and tell me how are ads about losing belly fat, quitting your job, and pushing hard the love button, help in establish strong business credibility about the book, the author or Dan’s blog. I believe it ruins everyone’s credibility. Realize that the two screen are capturing the same identical blog page but demonstrate how Google controls changing these ads at different times.
(First google ad)
(Same screen a couple of seconds later with a different google ad)
I read blogs using a blog reader, which allows me to review multiple blogs instantaneously to quickly pick and choose the entry I may be interested in reading. It also saves me the time it would otherwise take to visit each blog in order to check if any of them has anything new to read. The concept has been there for a while and it uses RSS technology, but that is for another article. The reader I happen to use is the popular Google reader. Take a look at the screen shot below, which shows the same identical blog above through my Google Reader. Notice that it does NOT show the Google Ads. This is a huge consideration if you are thinking of utilizing Google Ads in your blog.
(Same screen of above blog page displayed in Google Reader
The second issue I have is more about the content. It seems to me that the author of each book had to simply answer several questions about their book rather than Dan interviewing them and writing his own review. But that would probably take some work.
Finally, his blog uses the Amazon affiliate program. This means that you are able to click on a book, which will then take you directly to the proper Amazon page. If you are then interested in ordering it online, the blog owner (most likely Dan) will earn some dollars. I do not have a key issue with this concept since I do the same on my own blog. The difference is that I believe you need to have a disclaimer about this in order to create credibility. Mine is at the bottom of the “About Chad Barr” page, which states that I will donate 100% of the affiliate program income to my favorite charities.
This article is intended to demonstrate how some decisions have the potential to ruin your credibility utilizing the wrong Internet tools and concepts.
Dov
The Bridge to Web Success
February 8th, 2008 at 7:06 am
You are right about adds. The Love Button? That’s a joke right.
I have used some of Dan Janal’s services, and this approach to raising a few extra bucks definitely runs counter to the type of service he is running. Just think of the demographic of his readers. Would they really be interested in such adds? How do the adds add (I know. That is redundant.) anything to the blog?
I think a key is to ask oneself if the adds provide a service to the blog reader. If not, or if they are likely to detract from the overall message in terms of content and image, then they shouldn’t be there. Conversely, I see nothing wrong with having an affiliate message with Amazon, because it is a useful service for the blog’s readers. Whether the proceeds are donated to charity or not, is not really relevant, but that’s just me. If you provide a useful service, then there is nothing wrong with getting paid for it.
Rich