Advertising banners (or lack thereof)

[Ed]

The previous incarnation of this community site had three banner positions spread across the top of every page. They were an attempt to cover the running costs of the site but never came close to covering the full cost. To be honest, it rarely covered more than the annual domain name renewal cost.

In this latest incarnation, I’ve resisted adding any advertising and have concentrated on other methods of raising money to cover our running costs. The “Community Supporter” program has been far more successful but still doesn’t cover all the bills (yet!). It’s tempting to say just add the advertising banners again to make up more of the deficit but I don’t want to do that. I think the community looks more serious without advertising all over it.

To cover the full costs of the website (and ensure the continuation of this community) we only need a very few people to sign up as Community Supporters each month but we’re not hitting that target.

There are more activities, forums and content for community supporters but, so far, this hasn’t been enough to encourage enough people to support the site. In my opinion, this is mostly because the community doesn’t have enough visitors in the first place. My target for the next few months will be to persuade more people to give our community a try. If you can do anything to spread the word, recommend our community to people on other sites and networks, please help.

I think we have the start of something truly worthwhile here and I don’t want it to end just because not enough people even know about it!

Martin likes this

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