Many years ago, most publishers decided to post their valuable content online “for free,” and to earn their keep by selling ads against it. It’s a model that has evolved over the years, and many companies are doing very well with it — particularly those who create content for a niche audience that is willing to buy things. (That is, an audience that advertisers are interested in.)

But there are dark clouds on the horizon. Web visitors are starting to install software to block the ads, allowing them to get the content without exposing their eyeballs to the money-making images that are intended to be part of the deal.

To some extent, websites have nobody but themselves to blame for this. They’ve crowded their pages with junk and annoying ads and made the experience slow and frustrating. New options that offer content that serves quickly with few ads are gaining market share.

Backing off from the NASCAR look is a good idea and might slow the number of users who install ad blockers, but it might also be too little too late.

Whether you’ve contributed to this problem or not, you’re going to suffer the consequences — because people don’t choose to install an ad blocker solely on what your site looks like. So … What’s a publisher to do?

Here’s an overview of the options, as I see it, with a few thoughts on each.

1. Do nothing – Only a portion of your visitors will use ad blockers, so don’t worry about it.

This was a decent strategy last year, when not many people had ad blockers, but it’s going to get worse this year, and probably will continue to get worse for a while. I don’t think it’s a good choice, but there is this to be said in its favor — it might do less harm than any of the other options. All the other responses to ad blocking software carry at least some risk.

2. Ask them to turn off the ad blocker and/or whitelist you – Ad blockers allow the user to specify some sites where the ads do get through. This might be a good first step in addressing the problem, especially if you redesign your own site to be light and fast.

Any such whitelisting effort should have at least the following components: (1) an explanation of why cooperating with the ad-supported system is a benefit to the reader, and (2) specific instructions on how to whitelist your site with the major ad blockers.

3. Find a way to deliver the ads anyway – With apologies to Newton, for any technology there is an equal and opposite technology, and that’s true of ad blockers. There are some services that find ways around the ad blockers.

I’m not sure what I think of this approach. In a way it seems like cheating, but it’s cheating on the cheaters, so maybe that’s okay.

My bigger concern is that it’s probably going to be a headache for your tech team as they’re constantly readjusting to the back and forth. It’s hard enough to get your page to display correctly on all the browsers and devices out there. If you add another layer to the madness you’ll need to be ready for the unintended and unexpected consequences of the geek fight.

4. Monetize their visit in some other way – Just because you monetize most of your traffic with ads doesn’t mean you have to do that with everybody. There are other ways to get your digital dimes from your visitors, including the following.

A. Ask them to pay, either for that particular piece of content (through a micropayment) or for on-going access to your content on a subscription basis. That could be a subscription to your web content, or it could be a value-add for subscribers to your other publications (i.e., the privilege of using an ad blocker is for subscribers only).

(Update: Wired is doing this.)

B. Ask them to register, fill out a survey, or otherwise give you some information that you value as much as the lost ad revenue. These days, information about your users can be as valuable as ad impressions.

C. Show sponsored content (content somebody else pays you to display).

There are many ways to monetize content without ads, but there is one big problem with that approach. Your ad sales team is probably paid on a commission on ad sales, not on those other things. They have no incentive to promote micropayments or any of these other efforts, which they will see as distractions from the important business of ad impressions.

If you choose to deal with ad blockers by introducing another monetization strategy, you’re going to have to address your internal incentives.

5. Prohibit visitors with ad blockers — This is a hardball response, but … hey, it’s your site. If you’re providing content on the assumption that the user has to suffer through your ads, then that’s the deal, and if they aren’t willing to accept it, you’re free to cancel the arrangement.

Those are the strategies I came up with. If you can think of other ways to deal with ad blockers, please send them along.

Next week I’ll discuss “pay to play” and other possible developments.