10/30/06 11:33 PM
I mentioned it awhile back in my music review section (mainly because that’s where the lions share of traffic goes on my site), but roughly two weeks ago I passed two million page views for the year. That’s not hits, nor individual users (which most people probably gauge their worth on), but nonetheless it was a minor milestone for my little domain, which has grown in traffic a little bit each year since launching it.
With the music reviews being the largest part of the growth, I’ve actually had several times in the past couple years where I’ve considered putting ads into the section. I’ve been approached by several different labels asking about rates for placing ads, yet I’ve never even seriously considered it. With creating podcasts and trying to listen to everything, I’m spending more time per week than ever actually thinking and putting work into the section, yet for some reason I still feel weird about trying to take the next step and putting ads up. For some reason it feels like it would be impartial, even though the spots would obviously be paid for. It’s something that may happen in the future at some point, yet I can say it probably won’t be any time soon.
All of the above said, I’ve seen the stats for this blog and there are a lot more readers here than I thought there would be. Who’s sleuthing me?
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:46 pm
I’m sleuthing you. I keep waiting for the subscribe-able podcast feed.
November 4th, 2006 at 11:50 am
I felt the same way about ads too, but I got a request from a band I really like (Yndi Halda) to put a banner on my site, they offered to pay, but I decided just to host it for free. Apart from that I dont really want to clog up my site, with stuff that isnt relevant.
As for reading your blog, I really enjoy and look foward to reading your reviews every Friday and just sort of stumbled across this part. It offers a different insight and I just like your admirable writing style
Keep it up, the music section is a valuable resource.
November 8th, 2006 at 2:21 am
Hey Aaron! How are you, sorry for going off topic, but I just gotta tell, you have to see Under Byen live!
A great Danish band
Check my review here
http://www.livejournal.com/users/bproelwin
greetings Elwin :)
November 27th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Hey Aaron,
Your reviews have been one of my most important windows into new music over the past two years since I began visiting your site. I dig your taste and trust your opinions (you apparently enjoy Carrot Cake too, so we are also on the same page there :)
I for one would be happy to see you put advertising on the site if it meant it would be easier for you to justify all the time it must take you to keep the reviews flowing.
I’m also one of the folks awaiting a podcast subscription feature ;)
All the best. Rock on!
—
Fergus
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Hi,
I’m new to this posting malarky, so haven’t figured out whether posting on an old thread is worthwhile yet; maybe this’ll teach me.
I was thinking about your advertising dilemma. My immediate thought is that you should do what you need to in order to keep this up; I can’t see anyone minding the odd banner ad. Keep the reviews and the musing up and I’ll be happy.
But then there’s the other horn – it bothers me that I give so much cash to amazon and I’d be happier if I gave more to the independents. Similarly, while I have no problem with any individual site putting amazon banner ads on, it bothers me that amazon will eventually take over the online world.
I wonder whether there’s a compromise solution of approaching your favourite indies (who do you buy from?) and asking them if they’d like to advertise/put those click-through deelies on instead or as well as an amazon banner. That way you avoid the whole corporate thing, help foster a community of independents and praps even divert a little cash that was going to go on cds anyway out of amazon’s pocket and into your own and that of some good independent record stores, which all sounds good to me.
Ta for the mixes by the way – first one all lined up to play now.
Owen