Removing advertising or not advertising will show credibility:

Advertising on a new site is self-defeating. Shouldn't you be highlighting the quality of the content to show why your site is linkworthy? Removing ads shifts the focus to your content and why someone should link to the site.

In my experience it helps the link building process to remove advertising from a new site because webmasters like to link to quality information that is free. A lack of advertising presents a more positive face because some people tend to overlook the high quality of the content because of the ads, not even give the content a chance. Leaving out the ads puts your content front and center, there's nothing to distract from it. Even Google didn't have advertising when it first started.

New sites with advertising are a turnoff

I receive many requests to link to new sites. Number one reason I'll decline is advertising. It's poison. Advertising sends the message that the reason this person wants my link is so they can make a buck off my traffic. Why should I link to that?

What is the point of trying to monetize a new site with a trickle of traffic? Advertising revenue depends on traffic. Shouldn't you focus on building traffic first then monetizing the site after it's acquired?



Works for older sites with low traffic

Sites that have been around awhile but aren't performing well should be considered candidates for removal of advertising. What you have to gain long term may outweigh what little earnings you'll lose while you focus on building traffic to the site.
Works on established sites, too

Even established sites can benefit from temporarily removing advertising. If a sub-section is not performing well because of a lack of links/traffic, you may want to consider temporarily removing advertising in order to boost the success rate of your link building effort.



Personally I like sites which are ad-free, if you want to have a site link worthy don't show your visitors that you are madly money minded. Looking to always make money through advertising will spoil the trend to attract backlinks to your website. If you want quality links you need to back off on strong advertising on your website.

Labels: Search Engine Optimization