Google AdSense is trying to help me make more money but I say no thank you

I got an email from Google Adsense rep mykle (it's always a lower case m) on the following tips to making more money on my blog.  I pasted most of it here but if you want the tl;dr version, basically to make more money I need to make it harder for my readers to read my content.  For example instead of putting all of the post in one easy to read page, Adsense suggest I only have a small excerpt of the beginning and then do a "Read More" button to redirect you to another page (which I find annoying on other people's blogs) or put an ad before and after a blog post (again, annoying).  Or unblock general categories so that you can see ads for anything and everything (no thanks, no lawyer ads for mesothelioma lawsuits on my blog please).  Sure earning more than $0.50 a day from ads on my blog would be nice but at what cost?  Or do you think I'm just over-reacting?  Would readers still enjoy the content even with these extra inconveniences?


The email from Google Adsense:


The following recommendations are AdSense optimizations and best practices to help you grow your revenue: 

Change the position of your current adsOther publishers with similar sites to yours have found success placing ads before and right after the articles, as that is the area where your users are most focused on! Additionally, since you have a good amount of mobile traffic, keep in mind that your two ads on the right panel will have very low visibility since they are forced to the bottom of the page, below your articles. 

I would recommend placing a responsive ad at the beginning of your articles, right after the title and date. I would then place another ad at the end of the articles, before the tags. Depending on how your website works, you may have to add the code manually to the beginning and end of the articles when creating a new post.

Adjust your website theme/design Your site has lots of great, well written articles. However, they are shown in their entirety on your home page and users can essentially read several articles and you'd only get 3 (2 at this time) impressions. In order to increase the number of impressions on your site, I would recommend displaying only a portion of your articles on your homepage with a photo and have a "Read more.." button/link to direct users to view the article on its own separate page. 

If you make this change to your homepage, I would recommend placing an ad at the header, just below the logo, and another ad in-between the articles or at the bottom of the page.

Keep General Categories unblockedI noticed you had 15 blocked categories. When you block categories, it reduces the amount of advertisers competing for space on your website, which means there is less competition and lower CPCs. As a best practice, we advise publishers to keep all General Categories unblocked.

As an alternative to blocking whole categories, you can block specific ads in the Ads Review Center under the Allow & Block ads tab.

Try page-level adsThese new page-level ads are specifically for mobile and do not count against your 3 ad limit. 

Once you have implemented these settings, please let me know and I will review your setup to make sure you are optimized.

Thank you to my readers who help me make some cents (and dollars) on my blog!

No reason for this picture other than it's awesome

Back when I went to Alt Summit this past June, most of the bloggers there were already monetizing their blog.  But I thought that would be a long way off for me.  But right around August, I noticed traffic to my site picking up so I decided to try out an affiliate program.  My first choice?  Amazon (because duh,  it has everything.)  The first day I sent a bunch of emails to my friends to ask for their support since I wasn't sure if I could qualify for the program with my own blog (you need to make a sale in a certain period to be fully qualified for Amazon's program).  And for a month or so I didn't really make any money from Amazon.  But as I started to write more product reviews, of products I purchased myself from Amazon, I started earning a small percentage (I'm talking about earning cents here).  But as more traffic came the overall total increased.  As of today (early November), I'm at $50 (yipeee!).  I know it's not a ton, but it feels great that my writing is earning me something!

I also added Google Adsense to my blog.  These are the ads that you see on the right, in my sidebar.  I limited it as much as I could to fashion (so you won't be seeing really annoying ads for weightloss and lawyers).  But I also earn cents every time someone scrolls past it.  If it's an ad for something you actually want to buy (like if it's a retargeted ad), and you click on it, then I earn as much as $1.  Again, not much but it's something.  Currently, since August I'm at $14.

Finally, I do a lot of Everlane reviews.  I usually add a referral link in there at the end or the beginning of the post because for every person who signs-up and then purchases something from Everlane, I get $25 in credit.  And last week I got my first $25!  Which is awesome because everyone knows how much I love Everlane!

Also last week I got my first invite into an affiliate program.  But it was for UK companies I wasn't familiar with.  After some research, I realized that these were companies I would never purchase from.  And so I said no.  It didn't feel right to promote them just for the sake of promotion.  If I promote anything on my blog, I want it to be items I have actually purchased or would have purchased myself.  Because at the end of the day I need to stay true to my readers (about 1500 of you who are repeat readers on Temporary Housewifey) and I write this blog to share my life, not to make money (that's just the frosting!).  So thank you all for your support!