Why did I leave money on the table?

All this time, I had stubbornly refused to place any display ads on my websites. It stems from the fact that I myself dislike the distraction from advertisements when all I want to do is to read the content on where I had landed.

I didn’t want to risk my website visitors’ engagement for the money.

Then there were also times when I would click on the ads from some websites. And it started to dawn on me that people who would bounce off my site would bounce, no matter ads or no ads.

I might as well monetize through their bouncing.

So it was in July that I applied for Google Adsense. For my website that’s 8 months old and populated with 200+ blog posts, I would have thought I’d get approved in no time.

How wrong I was!

I think the wait time stated in the acknowledgement email from Adsense was 3 working days.

Guess how long mine took?

It took almost 3 weeks! I had almost given up waiting, and there was no way I could contact them to check if there’s anything wrong with my application process.

Well, that doesn’t matter now, the ads are up on my site, I don’t expect hundreds of dollars from the start, but at least it’s all set up to receive a passive income stream that is going to build itself up as time goes by.

Now I’d like to invite you to share any thoughts related to Google Adsense or any other advertising network.

How about your experience with placing ads on your website? Did it affect your visitors’ engagement, and how has your ads revenue increased over time?