It may come as a surprise for many webmasters and bloggers, but the truth is that waiting for advertisers to come to you is generally not a good idea. Unless you already have a famous site, of course. If you aren’t that lucky yet, it’s time to realise your site won’t be easily found by [...]]]>Are there potential buyers for my ad spots?
Many advertisers are willing to purchase ads on smaller sites and blogs. Some are looking for branding, others for link juice, and others yet buy very large amounts of ads on hundreds of sites because they hope to have them eventually seen. Identify what your site can offer… and go offer it.
Is my site ready for potential advertisers?
Do you keep it updated? Are there any broken links on it? Can any coding problems be detected? How attractive is the current design? Think about these things before you go around offering advertising deals, because no one is going to buy any ads before visiting your site. Hence, you must make sure your prospects will like what they ‘ll see.
Is my “advertise here” page useless?
Of course not! First of all, it’s not totally impossible that a prospect advertiser read it without having been previously contacted by you. Secondly, you can use it to your advantage when you take the initiative to contact potential clients. Here’s how:
- Put on your “advertise here” page all pieces of information that might help a prospect ad buyer make a decision: your site’s typical audience, stats, prices and so on. Then, send emails to your prospects, but don’t repeat all that info. Instead, provide a link to that special page of yours, so your prospects can learn more about your site there. The email itself must be a summary of what matters most to a potential ad buyer (basically, why he/she should buy an ad from you?). Save the details for the appropriate page and also offer to provide more details on request.
- While you’re at it, why don’t you offer a special advertising deal that cannot be found on your site? Point your prospects to your “advertise here” page to show them that the price and/or conditions proposed to them aren’t available to the general public. This way you’ll help them perceive your deal as truly valuable.
Now, go look for some potential ad buyers and show them that your site is ready to promote their products or brands — and/or to give them some link love.
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So, you decided that you aren’t going to wait for advertisers to find your site. Instead, you’ll take the initiative to look for them and offer them a good advertising spot or package. That’s great! But now you must be wondering where those ad buyers can be located. There are several places where you can [...]]]>There are several places where you can find advertisers for your blog or website, but today I’m going to focus on the following ones:
1. Your own site
Yes, your own site can help you compile a list of prospect ad buyers. Here’s how: install AdSense (or other contextual ad network’s code) on your template. Wait a few days, until Google learns what your site is about and starts showing appropriate ads. Now visit the sponsor sites (don’t click on your own ads; type their URLs on your browser) and see if they are indeed relevant to your audience. If the answer is positive, these are ad buyers you may want to offer a deal to.
2. Google
I’m not going to suggest that you simply search for companies in your niche via Google, though you can certainly do that as well. The problem is that you can’t easily guess whether the search result pages will contain companies that are used to buying ads or not. So, I recommend that you do the following: type keywords that are related to your niche and see if the result pages display sponsored ads. If they do, check their sites. The principle here is pretty similar to the one applied to place #1.
3. Competitor sites
Your competitors can (involuntarily) lend you a hand when you’re seeking for prospect ad buyers. Visit their sites and read their “advertise here” pages. Take notes on the prices they charge, overall conditions, stats, restrictions etc. Now visit their current sponsors and contact them to offer better advertising deals. It’s that simple.
Have you ever tried any of these methods? Leave a comment sharing your experiences with us.
]]>Direct ad sales are among the best monetization methods that a blogger or webmaster can use. However, I’ve seen a certain mistake being made by numerous site owners. They don’t seem to realise how harmful this can be to their monetization strategy. But I won’t let you become one of them. I’m going to draw [...]]]>What’s the main mistake made by webmasters and bloggers who sell ads on their pages?
No one will be getting too many interested advertisers while their site or blog isn’t popular. It’s only natural. Most advertisers are interested in either branding or direct traffic. The exception to this rule are link builders seeking for favourable Google rankings, but they’re out of this article’s scope. So let’s go on analysing only the typical ad buyer.
Suppose I’m searching for blogs where I could place ads to promote a new site of mine. Your four-month-old blog happens to belong to my niche and I find it after some googling. I like its header and its overall design. I also notice that the top article’s title look very appealing. But before I proceed to check the content’s quality, my eyes instinctively look for ads. After all, I need to know where and how my banner will be displayed if I buy a spot. Much to my surprise, all I see is a group of four buttons that read “Advertise Here.”
Do you know what I think about it? “Hasn’t anyone bought any of these ad spots yet? Why? Should I really buy any ads here? Maybe it’s not a good place for advertisers.” Oh, I’ve omitted my thoughts about lack of professionalism.
Why displaying several “advertise here” buttons is a mistake?
As an advertiser, all I need to see is one or two links to your “advertise here” page. One of them should be an easily findable text link and the other one can be an unsold button. Show me more than this and you’ll probably make me lose interest in your ad spots.
This is amateurish, people. You don’t want to let potential advertisers notice that you have sold few or no ads. You want your pages to look reasonably attractive to ad buyers. Having unsold inventory is normal and understandable, but there’s no reason to make it too obvious. Otherwise, your site or blog will look more suspicious and less reliable than it could. A prospect advertiser could think that your site is a total failure, or that your traffic numbers (in case you mention them) are fake, or that previous advertisers may have had negative experiences with you, or that you’re so desperate for money that you need to beg for advertisers…
How to fill your unsold ad inventory
Now you must be wondering how you can fill those unsold ad spots until real advertisers show up. Here are some suggestions:
- Exchange banners with friends. But let them know that this is a temporary offer and that their banners will be replaced by advertiser ones as soon as you sell some spots.
- Promote other sites and blogs of yours, as long as they relate to the same niche.
- Use affiliate ads. If they do well, mention this fact to potential advertisers. This way you’ll prove that ads displayed on your pages do convert.
Of course, following my advice isn’t a guarantee that you’ll attract lots of advertisers all of a sudden. But I do guarantee that if you make the mistake mentioned above, you’ll lose ad sales. Don’t let that happen to you. You just never know when your site will be found by a prospect advertiser.
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