How publishers may go beyond ad revenues instead of blocking content

How many times have you gotten distracted and interrupted because of a pop-up or roll-out advertisement online? Almost Always.

While print ads were avoidable with you just flipping a page and not reading it, online advertisements are intruding.

But then AdBlocks came to the rescue. In a day you could dodge more than 500 ads if you were using the internet regularly, and that number is really something.

But that number costs a lot to the publishing companies, online content companies and newspaper websites.

Recently, leading English newspapers in India like Times of India and Hindustan Times blocked their content for readers who use AdBlockers. A notice is displayed requesting the readers to disable their AdBlocks in order to use their content.

While the move may come as a saving grace for publishers to boost their ad revenue model, it may  irk consumers to the point of them staying away from such websites altogether.

Finding a middle way seems difficult as circulation revenue and advertisement revenue are just about the few factors that ensures sustainability for content.

So, how can this battle between access to websites and ad-blocks be avoided?

Perhaps looking beyond an advertisement-based revenue model can help tackle this issue.

Not all content websites depend on an ad revenue model and certainly not all companies can rely on an ad based revenue.

Here are a couple of other ways to generate revenues apart from or without advertisements:

Pay wall

New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been quite successful in implementing a pay wall and generating revenues. If you churn out exclusive and in depth content and have a good reputation, people will pay to read your website.

Sponsored content

This is a very lucrative way of generating revenues and it is not blocked by AdBlocks. There is a surge in sponsored content that ensures a increase in value in the near future.

Subscriptions

At the end of the day, good content is the King. Any content of high quality is bound to generate traffic and conversation. In this way publishers can create a platform for brands to reach audience through multimedia tools and options like e-books, native ads, galleries and videos for readers.