Sponsors or Vendors Section on the site - your thoughts?

[megan]

Howdy everyone!

As I've been updating barterfaire.org, I had an idea that would help pay for the site (hosting, software, and my time updating the site, researching events, answering e-mails, etc. - which I currently provide and do for free). What if I put up a "Sponsors" or "Barter Faire Vendors" section of the site featuring ads with links to vendors' sites that are frequently at barter faires and festivals? These could be put up for a small fee that would help keep the site running, and our beloved family vendors would get some extra exposure. This site does get a lot of traffic, so the advertising space would definitely be a good investment. But in general, I'm not a fan of advertising and I wanted to see what the community thinks of this idea before going forward with it...

So, do you think a "Sponsors" section of the site with small ads for vendors would be a good idea for the site? Would you visit it to see what kind of vendors are at the faires or to learn more about items you've seen at festivals? Would vendors think this is advertising worth paying a little bit for? Or would this whole idea offend you and you prefer that the site stay free of commercial/vendor endorsements?

If I do go ahead with this, there will definitely be some guidelines to ensure that the advertisers are sincere and they're part of the barter faire family (in other words, no spammy ads or irrelevant ads). I could also offer to create the ad images for vendors as part of the advertising service...

I'm curious to hear some feedback. Thanks for your comments and continued support of barterfaire.org!

[primordialstuff]

I think that if this was done in such a way that it was not "in your face" or obnoxious advertising it would be a good idea. Though I have not gotten back on the BF Vendor train, I am planning to do just that this year. It would allow you to recoup some costs, which we all know is a real thing. It takes time and money to keep a site like this up and running, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves and doing an injustice to the entire community. Once I get my Vendor Site set up I would very much like to entertain the idea of advertising here.

[megan]

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback. I'm thinking it would be on a separate page of the site so it wouldn't be obtrusive, though we could do a couple ads on the bottom of the home page or somewhere tucked away.