I've been deliberating about the possibility of removing advertising from FifeWeather for some months and this week I decided to go head with the move.
To give some background on why I put adverts on the site in the first place, it all comes down to the fact that the advertising helped to partially offset the operational costs of running FifeWeather. Some of the main operational expenses for keeping FifeWeather online come from:
- Server hosting (around £35 a month)
- Broadband connections for WeatherCams (around £30 a month)
- Ongoing maintenance on the weather station hardware and weathercams (around £35 a month)
- Total monthly costs - ~ £100
In contrast, the advertising brings in around £30 per month, reducing my total monthly outgoings for running FifeWeather to around £70 a month.
So why remove the advertising? Well there are multiple reasons for the decision, but the primary driving factor is the fact I've been growing more discontent with how the advertising makes the site look, versus the monetary return.
In short, I no longer believe the fairly meagre returns from advertising justify the visual blight the adverts create on the website. Not only are the adverts intrusive, but for me they started to ruin the overall ethos of FifeWeather as a free and accessible source of weather information for the Fife community. I'm hoping that by removing the advertising, the website will be more enjoyable and more accessible to visitors.
However this does mean that the monthly financial burden of operating FifeWeather has increased by about a third. So rather than leaving the advertising on the website, I thought I would open a "Buy Me A Coffee" account that allows anybody that would like to contribute to the running costs of the website, to do so.
If you'd like to help support the running costs of FifeWeather, your contribution would be hugely appreciated and can be made here:
Thank you for visiting FifeWeather and I hope you enjoy the website and the information it provides.
Graham Smith, founder and operator.
