Pros & Cons To Using AdSense For A Community-Based Site

Forum Moderators: martinibuster

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Pros & Cons To Using AdSense For A Community-Based Site

HuskyPup

3:06 pm on Dec 16, 2012 (gmt 0)

I've been asked by our regional district council to set-out plans of how to establish a self-funding local community-based site. Does anyone here have any experience with this type of site, what type of CMS did you use, forum and/or image boards?

The region is mostly agricultural, 680 sq miles with a population of 137,000 and is part of a county 2,687 sq miles with 1,042,00 population. It is anticipated that if it is sucessfully implemented then we would use the same/similar theme to extend to the whole county.

I favour the AdSense route to avoid the necessity of an advertising department and the council is very keen to reduce their salary bill but at the same time extending their reach into the county.

We are not expected to take-on any of the council's regular administrative work.

martinibuster

4:32 pm on Dec 16, 2012 (gmt 0)

AdSense
Pro: Set it and forget it. :)
Con: Local-type advertisers would have to jump through the AdWords hoops in order to place a single ad on you site.

Local advertisers would have to navigate through the AdWords interface, figure it out, to find your site and advertise on it

Open-X
Pros: Easier for an advertiser to place an ad on your site
Can set your own prices
Can set different floor prices for different ad units

Cons: Relies on the local market for advertisers
May have to market the offerings and cultivate advertisers

aaamazing

1:05 am on Dec 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

My experience with rural community based sites (from attending not-for-profit conferences) is that you should also aim to facilitate community i.e. with Facebook.
And in the long run, community is what attracts and keeps the site growing.

HuskyPup

10:49 am on Dec 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

i.e. with Facebook.

Actually that was one of the main drivers for this project since a very recent event was not known about because the council posted only one-line notice on its calendar about it.

I had picked-up on it and posted it on a local hotel site I run however all the traders were fuming that, in general, the public hadn't known and my daughter said "Well, if it had been on Facebook everyone locally would have known".

The council's advertising and web department have obviously taken a thrashing about this which is why they came to me.

HuskyPup

11:05 am on Dec 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

Apologies, welcome to WebmasterWorld aaamazing :-)