tech.agilitynerd.com

Even though you haven't seen much activity in the past couple weeks on my blog there has been a lot of activity "behind the scenes". I'm looking to make some changes this year and am curious how my readers might feel about them. It is kind of a long story but I hope you'll bear with me because I like to be open about my reasoning.

Performance

I launched this blog in August of 2004 with my current web hosting service HostMagix because it was a low cost choice (still only $40 US per year). The servers are located in Asia so the responsiveness to my predominantly U.S. readers isn't too fast. But when I only had a few dozen readers it was acceptable.

As I've added more content to my blog my reader ship has grown to a respectable 20,000 page views a month ([[wbcaptcha now that comment spammers are gone]]). But with growth has come problems. I've heard occasional complaints about slow web page loads and web page time outs. HostMagix also hosts my email for this and other domains and I've had problems with email bounces and not receiving email. However, when ever I've needed help they have been pretty responsive (email only).

Monitoring

So I have been monitoring the response time of my server through a 30 day trial period at pingdom.com and here is the total page load time for a test page (without images) for 8 worldwide located servers since the beginning of the year:

The over two second load times and occasional outages (not shown above) are troublesome. So this confirms my fears that I'm getting what I pay for; a low cost shared hosting service. My contract with HostMagix expires in a couple months so these results have convinced me to look for a U.S server with higher performance specifications.

Web Content

There are hints that the recent purchase of YouTube by Google may mean adding commercials to personal videos or to the player that embeds in the html page. So I'm envisioning moving my video files either to a new service or, more likely, back to my server and using a third party player. So that will increase my bandwidth needs.

I'm also writing a plug-in for my blog software to add links to articles related to each article to make it easier to locate other items of interest and that will require additional computation when pages are delivered.

Operating Costs

By going to a more performant server with higher bandwidth and disk space allowances I'll be able to serve pages much faster, host a lot more video, and offer more features. Of course you don't get something for nothing so my website operating costs will probably be between $120 and $250 a year.

I started this blog as a way to share what I know about dog training and help disseminate the ideas of some of the smart trainers I am fortunate enough to know and train with. So this website has never been about making money. Like so many other agility enthusiasts I like to dream about ways to have my hobby pay for itself; but this blog will never be that. With that in mind I am looking for ways that I can supplement some of the costs of running the site rather than "make money".

As far as I have been able to figure out there are really five models for making some money ethically through a website:

• Donations
• Subscription Services
• Affiliate Programs
• Sponsorship
• Ads

Donations are one model I could use; appeal directly to my readers to contribute occasionally to help offset my hosting costs. But it is a little too much like begging for me.

A number of readers have commented that I could offer a subscription service where I release articles to subscribers sometime before they are published to the website. But for me to be happy with that model I'd have to be posting high quality content on a regular basis and my taking of an occasional hiatus wouldn't be right in my mind.

The affiliate model came to mind when I wrote my Clean Run Magazine Search. It turns out Clean Run has an affiliate program where referrers get a percentage of any sales directed to the Clean Run store. I realized when a magazine search resulted in someone wanting to buy a back issue I could get a percentage of their purchase. I contacted Monica at Clean Run and this might come to fruition when they launch their new web site. I'll have to learn how the mechanics of their program works.

My concern with affiliate programs is that they might be viewed by my readers as biasing my viewpoint on products sold through the store(s) I would be affiliated with. I don't even want a hint of such a bias. So, if it works out, the Clean Run affiliate program would be limited only to magazine purchases (I love the magazine) and any other Clean Run products that I actually have used and would recommend.

Sponsorship is another possibility but would have an even larger issue with perceived bias than an affiliate program. I would also have to actually find a sponsor and a significant size image ad would probably be required.

The last funding approach is to host ads and raise money through click through ads and ad referrals. The most straight forward and visually unobtrusive source for adds is Google AdSense. These are the simple text link adds that adorn more and more blogs and websites. While I don't like the idea of ads on my blog I think I could position them so that they would be unobtrusive but still be useful to raise the couple cents each click would generate.

Right now I'm leaning toward the Clean Run affiliate program and Google Ads to raise a little income to offset the new hosting fees. The search is still on for a new hosting service that meets my needs.

So in any event a better and faster AgilityNerd website will be coming your way later this year. I look forward to your comments and emails on one or more of these ideas.