Let’s have a chat about sponsors

Adverts in web pages. Everyone dislikes them, including me. But there becomes a time when they are truely necessary and this is one of these times.

Long standing members may have noticed the EVE-Online trial invites in the public EVE forums. These ads serve two purposes. (Continue on after the break to read more)

1. People spying the content via Google or any other of the many search engines looking for information about EVE may be convinced to play the game because of the content on the page, perhaps even using the link to create an account. If not, no loss. I’d also like to think that any current members looking for a new account via the trial account method would give the link a shot.
2. Funding for the server upgrades next year (May). I’m taking this move very seriously, indeed maybe a little two seriously. I have considered many hosts already. Even one of the biggest, MediaTemple. I’m sure you’ve noticed how slow the server is currently, that is mostly my fault for picking a host that enjoys overselling.

I’d like to think that you find the ads on the forum unobtrusive of your browsing experience. They certainly are for me. I most confess however, that they were originally being blocked by Adblock and I changed the image URLs to prevent them from being blocked.

So, that’s the ads on the forums explained, now on to the adverts here.

Originally, this theme came bundled with some Google AdSense ads for the ‘Sponsor’ section of the sidebar. They fitted well with the design, and they weren’t that visible if you were reading a post.

I, like last time, made a choice to go for image based ads. They look more like a part of the site than a table of text links with a Google logo stamped to the bottom ever will, and they also catch the eye. As you can see with the ‘fake’ TXSI. sponsor, all images here will conform to a standard and will also be hand picked so that they don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

How many images do you plan to use you ask? Well, in the simplest form, 5. If demand ever sees that I might need to have more than 5 images to display as a sponsor I’ll put them on a random rotation so that everyone gets an equal amount of ‘air time’.

Let’s get back to those standards. 300×72, less than 10Kb (10240 bytes) and more importantly, the images must have the ’split’ design of the original EVE-Online ad. If you want to put some text in there, send me a copy and I’ll tell you if it meets the standard I expect or not. If not, you can still put up the ad without the text in the grey box. (See the TXSI ad).

So, you want me to display your ad? Sure, why not. However, you must have an affliate or similar system in place that I can sign up to.

The .PSD template that I used for the sponsor images can be downloaded here.

And remember, time equals money. I spend a lot of time making improvements on the site, as well as keeping it maintained without asking more of you than to click the occasional ad.

Thanks.