I’m trying something new based on two values. The first value is success and the second value is desire. On desire, I’d like to monetize my blog in some way, but I don’t want to sacrifice the value of my content to my readers. On success, I’ve managed to be successful in implementing Google AdSense and Amazon affiliate links at World Class Poetry, which has set new records for traffic (see below).

Therefore, I’ve decided to run a test. At the bottom of this post you’ll see some Google AdSense links. I plan to include these as long as they can remain unobtrusive and not detract from my content. My No. 1 concern is that I maintain a consistency in valuable content for my readers. If the ads take away from that then they’ve got to go. I’d be interested in your feedback on this test run.

I realize that I have two types of readers. The first type of reader is the die-hard poet or lit lover who truly likes what I have to say about poetics and is interested in reading the content for its value. The second type of reader is the reader who may be looking for information on poetry or looking for poetry to read and finds my blog after performing a search through one of the search engines or through one of the social networks to which I belong. I am not exactly what they were looking for, but I managed to pique their interest in some way so they entered the blog to see what I have to say. The first type of reader may subscribe to my RSS feed or may not. Nevertheless, she will return again. The second type of reader will not subscribe to my feed nor return again. I’m OK with that.

The ads are intended to serve that second type of reader – the reader who might have some interest in poetry as a subject, maybe because he is doing research for high school or college or maybe it is just a hobby. Either way, that reader doesn’t really care about the subject of poetics or information about contests and other such content that deals with what is happening in poetics today. I figure if they aren’t going to stick around long or become a regular reader then I can give them a graceful exit and cull a few cents of profit from the value they do receive while they are here – and it won’t cost them anything at all while doing so.

There will doubtlessly be some people who will accuse me of selling out or decide that I am a capitalist pig and refuse to have anything to do with me. I for one don’t see a problem with someone trying to earn a living – even a small one – doing what it is they love. I’d like to know what others think, at any rate. If the ads detract from your reading experience, please let me know. If you find them unobtrusive enough, I’d like to know that too. Do they look gaudy and unappealing? Should I change the colors? I want to know your thoughts.

I have other ideas for monetization that I may implement at some time in the future. But I am taking this slowly. I don’t want to bombard my readers with come ons and “in your face” marketing attacks. That’s not what this is all about. So, feedback welcome. Please give.

World Class Poetry Continues To Grow
I started World Class Poetry, the website not the blog, in the summer of 2005 while deployed with my National Guard unit to Iraq. During steady-state operations I had some extra free time between my shifts for personal time for a period of about three months. I used that time to start the website and built about ten pages. When my situation changed and I started working more hours to prepare for redeployment back to the States, I could not work on it at all. Even after returning home, I was so preoccupied with recalibrating my life, rebuilding familial relationships, starting a business, and adapting to a new home, that I could not work on the site for almost a year. Once I got my income level to a comfortable point in my business, I decided to quit working the long hours and focus a part of my time on the poetry website. That was late in 2006.

In November 2006, I had 1,035 visits to the website, of which 724 were unique visitors. My average daily visitor count was 24. Average daily visits was 34. In February 2007 those numbers were 1,535 total visits, 1,168 unique visitors, 54 average daily visits, and 41 daily visitors on average. I’ve watched those numbers steadily rise over the course of the last year as I have been consistent in adding pages and increasing my content. One year later, February 2008, I had 422 daily visits on average and 306 average daily visitors. My total traffic for the month was 12,247 visits and 8,875 unique visitors. I had 20,657 total page views.

By Web standards, those are not great statistics. But for poetry websites, those numbers are pretty good. These figures represent 797% growth over the course of one year from February 2007 to February 2008. And I’m just getting started. I see these figures just getting bigger and bigger as I continue to add new content.

On February 25, 2008, I hit a new high in daily traffic. That day, I had 682 visits and 642 unique visitors. It was my first day over 600. I remember just a few months ago being excited about my daily traffic count hitting 300. Now I get more than 300 visits (and unique visitors) on a regular basis. I suspect that sometime in April (National Poetry Month) I will see my first 1,000 visit day. I expect to reach more than 10,000 visits (and possibly unique visitors) in March.

I’ve seen similar traffic patterns with the World Class Poetry Blog. I started the blog in September 2007. Since then my traffic has grown to 2,723 visits for the month of February and 2,266 of those were unique visitors. That means I got almost 500 return visits in the month of February. That’s just a few numbers shy of my traffic numbers in October when I started tracking the blog’s traffic.

My top blog posts for the month of February 2008 were:

• Ushering In Black History Month With Poetry By Langston Hughes
• Blog Critique: Poetry By Stacey
• Ekphrastic Poem Contest And Litmags
• Poetics: The 7 Essential Elements Of Poetry
• Why Book Critics Are Losing Their Dog Gone Influence
• Are You A Poet Or – Shriek! – A “Hobbyist”?
• Hyperbole: A Necessary Evil … In Poetry Or Politics
• Poetry Potpourri, Volume 4 – Books, Poems, And Other Debris
• Mary Oliver’s “Cold Poem” Shows Us Our Own Sweet Devouring
• 40 Poetry Podcasts You’ll Love

This is a very revealing list. With the exception of two of these posts, the list represents a collection of expository writings about poetry and poetics, what I consider to be my primary strength. I have, for as long as I can remember, always excelled at this type of writing, and I might add, I rather enjoy it. The post requesting entries into an ekphrastic poem contest, though it was widely read, did not get much reaction. No one entered. That disappointed me, but it shows that perhaps those types of endeavors are not in my repertoire. It will be a long time before I sponsor another one of those. But you can look forward to more of the expository writing.

In fact, soon I will expand on one of my favorite topics. A few days ago I wrote a post titled, “Mellennial Poetics: A New Way Of Thinking About Craft.” I will soon – maybe tomorrow – begin a series of posts that will expand on those points (there are 9 of them). I will delve a little deeper into each point of poetics addressed in that post. I invite you to return to read what I have to say. To my regular readers, I’d like to say thanks for staying with me this long. To those just passing through, I’d like to leave you with a thought: I hope you’ll keep you an open mind.