Proven Tips to Finding Advertisers For Your Blog
Surf around blogs today and you are likely to find a majority of blogs having some form of advertisement placed on and around the blog. Some of these advertisements could be in the form of Google Adsense, text links (you got to be careful with that) and image advertisements. I went on a hunt for image advertisements for my asian recipes blog recently and was successful in securing my first order. It was a direct sale and I was pretty pleased with that. Afterall, I get 100% of the payment and there is no middleman involved. Let me share with you my experience in securing my first direct order.
Work on Your Blog
You must have something to sell before you approach someone to buy from you. If you want to sell apples, you have to show your buyers a beautiful plump and unblemished apple which is enticing enough to be bought. Definitely not showing them a half-bare orchard where the apple trees are still immature. Put yourself in your potential advertiser’s shoes - would you be keen to advertise in a blog which is brand new or does not appear to have much valuable content? Again, a good looking blog is likely to appeal to advertisers compared to a badly designed blog. Keep your blog as simple looking as possible so that your advertiser’s advertisement would look prominent.
Check Your Market
Be realistic with your pricing. If you are only able to offer a few hundred page impressions per day, chances are it would be more realistic to sell the advertising space at a low price of say USD10 - USD15 for starters. Test the market. It may be worthwhile to approach smaller companies who would be willing to give online advertising a try at a relatively small sum of USD10 per month.
Target Potential Advertiser
If you are blogging about cars, approach advertisers in the car industry business. They are more likely to advertise on your site compared to a company which deals with water heaters. You can do a search of these sites on the net for potential advertisers. For instance, search for used car dealers or parts manufacturers to advertise in your blog about cars. Alternatively, look through other sites in your niche and who their advertisers are. You are not precluded from approaching these advertisers directly but you must know where you stand as far as pricing and exposure from your blog is concerned. Read on »
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Google Adsense - The More The Better?
I was just browsing around Digital Point Forum specifically on Google Adsense issues to see what’s been on many web owner’s minds about Google Adsense. In a sub-topic, there are requests for reviews on Google Adsense placement, colour and related stuffs - presumably to increase the click thru rates (CTR) and earnings. When I visited some of these sites which require a review, I was astonished to discover that many web owners place Google Ads all over the site (just below the header and sidebars) but none on the content. Well, to be frank, I used to do that and I maximised all available Google Ads slot for me (1 link unit + 3 Ad units). Over time, I learnt that having more Google Ads does not equal more earnings. Here’s why.
Bots
To display the right type of ads, every time your page loads, your site sends a signal to Google Adsense’s server (I think it is called java call) and this may result in the Google Bot coming to scan your page for the keywords. If your page is well written (meaning that it concentrates on certain keywords), chances are the relevant ads to the keywords in that page would appear. These keywords also play a role in how the search engine tracks your site’s relevance in a search. If your content is not targetted, chances are the ads would be irrelevant to the reader who came in from the search engine. And when the ads are irrelevant, chances are they won’t click on the ads.
Search Engine
Regular readers on your blog are unlikely to click on your Google Ads. They come to read what you have recently written and then they will probably go to the next blog or site on their bookmarks or RSS readers. People who pop into your blog from search engines are more likely to be people who are looking for information. These are the people whom you should optimise your ads for. Make it easy for them to see your Google ads and click on them. Don’t make it easy for them to click on other stuffs. Therefore, minimise or get rid of other types of advertisements or non-paying widgets. If you must, remove blogrolls and social networking badges. If you really want to focus on a higher CTR, you must allow it to happen. The more alternative links there are for people to click on, the lower your CTR will be. Read on »
15 Things I Learn About Google Adsense
Google Adsense was the first advertising vehicle I used when I started out blogging. Many people claimed that it is easy - all you need to do is just to copy a code and paste it on your blog and start earning money without doing anything. That, my friends, is probably the biggest lie on the blogosphere. It is far from easy.
Google Adsense used to appear on this blog but I have since removed them for reasons which I shall disclose later in this article. Having used Google Adsense for a little over 2 years, I have learnt a bit about how it works and I would like to share them with you here. The word “Ads” hereinbelow refers to Google Adsense ads.
1. You will fare better if your site is found on the front page of search engines.
2. People who are more likely to click on the ads are those who came through search engines. Regular readers are more likely to be ad-blind.
3. Analyse your search engine referral traffic to see whether people are searching for something in particular. That gives you an idea of whether they are more likely to click on the ads on your site.
4. If your site contains information like an encyclopedia, chances are people are less likely to click on the ads. If your site contains little information, chances are they will click on the ads to get what they really want.
Do I Make Money Online?
Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? But I have an experience to tell you about this Making Money Online fad. It is not as rosy as what some might picture it to be but it is not necessarily peanuts as what some naysayers want to portray.
Why Do I Make Money Online?
Why not? That would be my answer. If money can be made, it would be silly to simply just brush it aside. Now, a decision to make money online is a world of difference from getting online solely to make money. How much you want to make and how you want to do that are different considerations.
How Did I Start Making Money Online?
I started with Adsense not long after I started my personal blog in Blogger. I was new to blogging and had very little exposure and reading on what Google Adsense was all about and how it works best. I placed the ads and was hoping to see a couple of bucks coming in daily. I even posted a question in a forum asking “Why am I not getting any money yet?”. I was silly enough to think that the mere placement of ads would make me money. I later found out the hard and long way (and still learning) that the placing of ads is probably just 1% of the work. I still need to get traffic et all.
Was it just Google Adsense?
No sirree! I indulged in placing affiliate links, flashy banners and paid posts. There was a considerable amount of returns with paid posts though. Those were the good times when my having a PR of 4 by Google qualified me to take up juicy posts which paid well. I must say that paid posts were relatively easy money then. The difficult part was to grab the available opportunities when they were available. Read on »



