I have gotten quite a few complaints about the video ads that were being displayed on the site. Although I was promised they would have a very high CPM (“cost per thousand”, a measure of what they pay), that turned out not to be the case at all. The ads themselves were pretty intrusive, particularly on tablets and other mobile devices. So I have killed them.
The ads that I replaced them with aren’t all that lucrative either so we’re still making a shamefully small amount of money on ad revenue. That is, unfortunately, the way the blogging world is at the present time. It’s very hard to monetize content unless you’re one of the giants in the blogging world. We’re not small, mind you. I just checked the Alexa scores of some of the major progressive state blogs and only three that I found that were even close to us were Blue Virginia, Blue Mass Group, and Peach Pundit. We get more traffic than all of them except Peach Pundit but they are not exclusively progressive. But, that being said, we’re still not big enough with 3,000-5000 hits per day on average to bring in much revenue.
That means we’ll continue to rely largely on our readers to ensure that all the Eclectabloggers are paid for their efforts. So, the next time a fundraiser comes around (second week in January), please do keep that in mind.
With the primary season soon upon us, Democratic candidates should consider advertising on Eclectablog as a way to reach their readers. There’s no other single political site in the state that is better positioned to help you reach your potential supporters.
Also, we are going to be changing the format of the blog before the end of the year. We’re looking for a theme that is more mobile-friendly, something that will help us with Google searches since they’ve changed their algorithm to punish sites that aren’t mobile-friendly. The content and writers will remain the same but hopefully you’ll enjoy a more pleasant experience when using the site.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
– Chris
