Putting ads for someone other than yourself on your website or blog is a bad idea.

I may have ranted about this before, but if I have, I promise you some people aren’t listening to me (or maybe they think I’m wrong, which seems very unlikely).

I’m visiting a lawyer’s blog today—it’s the blog of a criminal defense lawyer. I’ve got a case to refer.

Great stuff. There’s this terrific article about this idiot lawyer who handled a murder trial that ended in a mistrial when the judge realized the lawyer was incompetent. The lawyer then bragged on Facebook about having obtained a mistrial like he had achieved a great victory.

Anyway, the criminal lawyer did a great job of taking the incompetent lawyer to task for his misdeeds. However, as I’m reading the criminal lawyer’s eloquent prose, I’m distracted by these ugly Google AdWords ads.

Big mistake.

Why does the lawyer have the ads on his site?

It’s certainly not for the money, which is certain to be minimal.

My guess is he has them there because someone else added them to his site when it was set up. Or maybe, for some reason, he thinks it’s a good idea.

It’s not a good idea. It distracts people from learning about you. It makes your site ugly. The site looks less professional. You won’t get the clients and referrals you’re seeking.

The way we monetize a lawyer website is with new clients, not with advertising revenue.

The idea is to present yourself well and recover the cost of creating the site and the content by generating business for your practice.

The ads harm that central mission of the site. They make it less likely that lawyers will refer and that clients will call.

If you’ve got ads on your site, get rid of them.