Advertising on PC
So, you’re thinking about giving me some of your money in order to sell or promote your product on Photocritic? Well, you’ve come to the right place then.
Before I take your dollars, euros, yen or whatever your local currency is, there’s a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about…
Photocritic and Integrity
Just me, a box camera, and a deeply disturbing beard. I'm sorry if it causes nightmares in small children or civil wars in unruly republics.
I take my integrity very seriously – there’s no point in running a blog if you’ve been bought by The Man.
I’m not doing this for the money (haha, if I was, I’d be bankrupt by now, running a photo blog is hardly a lucrative business), but at the same time, running this blog costs quite a bit of money.
Even though I do occasionally get generous donations, donations and advertising doesn’t quite cover the running costs of the server, bandwidth, and all that malarkey – never mind the time I spend creating content for my blog.
Long story short; I’m not made of money, and photography is a rather expensive hobby, so I found myself faced with two options: Close down the Photocritic blog, or try to take measures to break even, so Photocritic isn’t costing me huge amounts of money, at least.
At the moment (September 2010), the goal of breaking even seems to be just about reachable.
Photocritic traffic stats
2005 – 180,866 visits, 240,229 pageviews
2006 – 276,726 visits, 572,866 pageviews
2007 – 747,144 visits, 1,571,419 pageviews
2008 – 771,659 visits, 1,581,890 pageviews
2009 – 985,239 visits, 1,529,766 pageivews
2010 (Jan-Aug) – 707,891 visits, 1,040,556 pageviews
2010 (estimated) – 1,061,836.5 visits, 1,560,834 pageviews
That’s a lot of keen photographers visiting my site every month. And now, you’ll have an opportunity to speak to them directly, through the fine art of advertising.
Advertising on Photocritic
Cash dollah. By cheque. Who even uses those anymore?
Since I’m inherently lazy, I can’t really be bothered doing bespoke advertising*, I am offering self-service advertising across the site, by the power of Shiny Ads. You can buy your own adverts on Photocritic via the Shiny Ads site – how nifty is that!!
*) Unless you want to do a complete site take-over or sponsorship deal. If that’s the case, e-mail me, and may you have many beautiful and healthy babies
Google AdSense
I’ve introduced Google AdSense contextual advertising. If you are reading an article about something that interests you, the advertising that is shown will be relevant to the article you are reading, and someone click on an advert, we are paid some money. I have no influence over what adverts are shown where, but Google seems to be quite good at that bit.
Affiliate links
In addition Photocritic may occasionally use affiliate links on the website. In the interest of transparancy, we mark these clearly with al behind the link. The al link will be linking to this page, explaining what is going on.
When you click one of these links, we benefit in one way or another. Some times, we might get a cut of money you are spending with a retailer, we might get paid per click, or there might be other ways we benefit. If you want to learn more about Affiliate links, how they work, and all that, have a look at the Affiliate Marketing article on Wikipedia.
Disclosure policy
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact me, Haje Jan Kamps, on hajejan@kamps.org.
My day job, if it can be called that, is being a writer. I've got one book out there so far and it's awesome, so go ahead and buy a copy! It's available from 
In front of you, five hyperactive men with guitars, drums, and microphones. Behind you, five thousand fans. In your hands, a camera... You're going to need more than just a little bit of good luck to pull this one off. That's where this book comes in.
Take a Canon EOS 450D. Attach a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Hit the streets of London. See what happens.
