I’ve been toying around with adding a advertising to the blog. I’m not really looking to make this a living – I do have a real job that I like very much. But I’m always curious to see could come of displaying ads from Google’s Adsense.

Its easy enough to set up for a WordPress user. There are simple plugins that make the HTML code effortless and all I have to do is set up the Ads in Google’s platform – that’s about it. It might be a bit oversimplified but it is easy. I’ve actually done it before for other sites just not my own.

If this were a serious goal of mine, it would have been done already. I’d also be posting regularly throughout the day and I’d probably be investing in private hosting, dedicated writers (i.e. me, myself, and I), and a professional design team to come up with an SEO, ad-ready, fast, and visually appealing theme.

But because its nothing more than an ongoing hobby and personal experiment, I’ve never bothered with any of that. Still, seeing what could come of advertising on the site could be considered part of the experiment. But I’m on the fence as to whether or not I want advertising – even the relatively less-ugly Google text ads – on my website.

And if I do include advertising, should I restrict the placement to posts or the RSS feed? Should I go all out and include sidebar or header/footer ads? Or should I try and drum up “sponsored posts” like some blogs I read do?

Or should I just do something plain like referrals? I looked into my hosting provider’s referral program and it’s not bad. I can get a discount on my hosting – which could come in handy if I do ever grow this blog out and want some private hosting – or I can opt for cash payouts in some circumstances.

So what should I do? Should I just leave the site alone and just keep at bettering my writing and continue to share interesting stuff around the net? Or should I see what could happen if I tried to make a few cents?

Here’s an experiment, though. I’ve set up a referral code with my hosting provider, DreamHost. If I did this correctly (and I hope I did), there is a $49.95 discount on hosting. For those who sign up for the monthly service, that erases the signup fee. For those who pay in advance, that should discount the total.

Again, I hope I set it up correctly. My apologies in advance if I didn’t. If you want to take advantage of the code, be sure to read all the fine print and make sure the discount is reflected in your invoice before committing to anything. I don’t want any angry emails saying I ripped anyone off because that’s not what I’m trying to do here.

Use this code: SICTS062010 when signing up or click on the link. Yes, I know the numbers in the code are for last month but that’s when I created it and I don’t want to change it.

We’ll see if this get any attention at all. If I get a bite and someone helps cover the my hosting bill, I might decide to extend the experiment to ads or other promotions. Oh, one thing, I’m only going to have this code active for the month of July. After July 31, I’m going to delete the code from DreamHosts’ system.