Today’s guest post comes from Chad Randall, the Director of Sales for b5media and the author of AdvertiseSpace. Chad has been working in the online advertising industry for over 6 years now, and has personally sold more than $5,000,000 in online ads. I figured he’d be a good person to ask about how to make your blog attractive to advertisers.
1. Have an “Advertise with Us” Banner on your site
This is the single most important issue. It should click to an Advertising information page and have an easy way to contact you for more information and rates. Key points: Make it a graphical image or a tab. Keep it above the fold.
2. Keep the ads on your site specific to your site
Don’t have smiley ads and wallpaper ads if your site is site is about mobile phones.
3. Show them the banners
If you currently have no paid placements on your site, put up house ads or partner ads in the same spot you would run a paid spot. (A house ad refers to banners for other products or sites that you or your company own)
4. Throw up a free bonus ad.
By putting a free advertisement on your site, you may not only encourage similar ads or competitors to that product, but the company you added for free may decide to advertise with you. Ask for full disclosure of the performance of the campaign in return. (Total clicks, total purchases etc. ) Key points. Put the free bonus up with a direct URL without tracking tags or affiliate tags.
5. Show your site stats.
You need to show at least the basics for site statical information: Monthly unique visitors and total number of impressions are the 2 key ones. Other less important can be Google PR & Alexa rank.
6. User demographic information. Know your audience.
The bare minimum is Male/Female % and average age of your readers. Other potentially useful information includes geographic, HHI, single/married, number of kids. etc. How do you get this info? You can do site polls, survey’s, or get more detailed stats from ComScore or Quantcast.com
7. Have an ‘About Us’ section.
Clearly explain who you are and what your site is about. And also why you are an ‘authority’ on what you are writing about, and why anyone should care about what you have to say.
8. Don’t use Google AdSense on your site.
OK, this could be the most painful one for most people especially if you are generating a few hundred bucks a month from it already. But Google ad sense devalues your site and makes it look unprofessional. You have to ask yourself, “Do I want some real revenue from my site or Google’s table scraps.”
9. Keep your blog on topic.
If you are all over the map in regards to topics about which you talk about, advertisers won’t know if they are a good fit for your site.
10. Keep your blog professional.
If you are talking about your cat, (Matt Cutts), ranting about your drive to work, swearing or bashing every product you can think about, it will scare away advertisers.
updated – for spelling. Thanks Eric.
[…] Problogger har på sin blogg en artikel som ger 10 tips om hur du kan få fler annonsörer till din blogg. Själv tog jag fasta på punkt nummer 4 och erbjöd gratis bannerannonsering på startsidan. Imorgon (torsdag) kommer jag att meddela vem som fick platsen. Buy putting a free advertisement on your site, you may not only encourage similar ads or competitors to that product, but the company you added for free may decide to advertise with you. […]
[…] 10 Ways to make your Blog more Attractive to Advertisers […]
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Couldn’t tell if I was the only one to comment on this topic, but this site, ProBlogger, uses AdSense. There must be some influential and important revenue stream that is being generated from it.
-Sam from MarketMatador.com
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thanks very much for usefull information
this is great info…thanks for the great recommendations
“8. Don’t use Google AdSense on your site.
OK, this could be the most painful one for most people especially if you are generating a few hundred bucks a month from it already. But Google ad sense devalues your site and makes it look unprofessional. You have to ask yourself, “Do I want some real revenue from my site or Google’s table scraps.” ”
funny…..
I’m actually in the process of re-arranging items on my future layout… including moving Google AdSense ads to a more discreet and “quite” location
Darren,
It is such a good post gave so many ways to attract Ads owners.
Thanks a lot.
I have started bloggin quite a few months back. Trying to be a full time blogger though I am an amateur. Thanks for the tips..
Nice tips, as most of the people who comment before, I don’t agree with the adsense tip.
good tips, thanks
but I think “Have an ‘About Us’ section.” not so important
well google adsense doesn’t make a blog unprofessional,its not everyone that thinks its bad
thank u for ur suggestion. i was finding for so much time and finely got ur help
Thanks for this post. I’d like to monetize my blog, but I’ve never really been too successful with affiliate programs, or adsense or anything. Thanks for your help :)
Definitely a solid set of tips, but I strongly disagree with #8. As long as your adsense ads are formatted and placed properly, I don’t think it would be much of a turn-off. That said, random placing of ugly ads is a big eyesore.
Another way to attract advertisers is to apply the concept of social value. If you place a set of fake ads up, advertisers will see them and will be more comfortable advertising with you, because you have been pre-selected by other advertisers already.
[…] 10 Ways to Make Your Blog More Attractive to Advertiser […]
I can see the point of view of the article as there are larger profits to be made through means other than adsense. As far as makin a site look unprofessional, this will simply fall to the site style. I have a serious of blogs im starting and I am definately intending to use adsense on it http://money-makingtruth.blogspot.com, There are lots of tips on the site about every aspect of money making. The content is simple but it works.
I had a site of mine indexed in google within 3 weeks with on backlink, itwas for the kyword addiction tips and i already receiving 1057 unique visits a day. I will be using pro blogger as my guide
Hi Darren,
I like the “Throw up a free bonus ad” rule. Many of the newbie bloggers don’t understand that the first thing they should do is to make the customer to feel confident about advertising in their blogs. I’ve worked with many peope who do not understand that and they loose money.
Cheers
Dimitar
very interesting contribution.
i’d read all post comments and now i’m confusing if putting adsense on my blog.
but, i think, if blog are very new, its quite ok to put adsense. that the main source revenue for blog owner.
and Chad is talking about Fortune 500…!!!
Really Nice Post , and Helpful too….
Google Adsense Helps in Improving The Page Rank. And We all know .. Maximun traffic comes in from Google Search. So Acc. to me Google Adsense Rocks !! Sorry !!
Advertisers Will Come To Popular blogs Only.. So for blogs “talking about your cat, (Matt Cutts), ranting about your drive to work” , Adsense is the only Hope….
this is very useful article, i will use this method for my blog for sure
Nice tips, as most of the people who comment before, I don’t agree with the adsense tip
Nice tips, as most of the people who comment before, I don’t agree with the adsense tip
I’ll use some of these tips to improve my blog. Thanks for the tips, dude!
Thanks for all these great tips. I like to think that as a blogger you move in phases. First write lots of content and then SEO’d. next comes beautifying your blog and focus on blog monetization including advertising and sponsored reviews. Thanks for sharing.
Peter Lee
good post, useful tips!
thank u for ur suggestion. i was finding for so much time and finely got ur help
Thank you so much for this post. I plan to get sponsors some day and this knocked some sense into me not to rush things. I know where I stand and where I must get. Very informative. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for this post. I plan to get sponsors some day and this knocked some sense into me not to rush things. I know where I stand and where I must get. Very informative. Thanks again.
http://www.TheBusinessOfMyBusiness.blogspot.com
Great tips, Thanks. I will be applying these tips to a site of mine to hopefully gain some needed ad revenue :)
In my opinion, the best tip is “Keep the ads on your site specific to your site”. Great Article, useful! Nice Work
“8. Don’t use Google AdSense on your site”
Great tips,.. but it’s very difficult for most new blogger like me. Do you have a trick for gain revenue without kick out the adsense..
regards
Great tips! I plan to implement all of these tips on each site, even the new ones because, from what I’ve seen in the advertising world, perception is reality – if an advertiser perceives that you have great ad space, it’s true!
Any other more in depth tips? How to contact potential advertisers? Suggested questions to ask advertisers to avoid looking like a “cold call”?
Thanks!
In my opinion, the best tip is “Keep the ads on your site specific to your site”. Great Article, useful! Nice Work
thank you
for this information ,,,,
it is important for any blog
“Advertising banners also enhances interactivity of the site and encourage others for a productive link exchange and give additional impact on ROI. If they know your pr, site statistics, that would even more attractive for them to have a business deal with you. But the number one consideration about your blog is that it should speak with authority so it establishes credibility.
I have been thinking for quite a long time why i am not getting more clicks on my AdSense ads.. It looks to me that there ‘haydays’ are well and truly over. Yes, there are some money coming in from them but not as much I would like.
Thanks for the useful tips. but, it really hurt me what you saying at no.8 (8. Don’t use Google AdSense on your site. ). I guess, a new website should have source of income right? most people will use adsense as no people will advertise at the new website.
Thanks – good to know these tips; I’ve never heard about google adsense devaluing your blog, this is the first. I think it depends where the google adsense is placed on the page of your website.
Thanks – good to know these tips; I’ve never heard about google adsense devaluing your blog, this is the first. I think it depends where the google adsense is placed on the page of your website
Hmm, interesting.. now I know where to start. Hopefully, advertisers will come. Just need to play around with my site to attract advertisers.
[…] 10 Ways to make your Blog more attractive to advertisers […]
I enjoyed read this I wiil try not puting AdSense on one of my sites to see how it works.
thank you for your time.
Good to know these tips; I’ve never heard about google adsense devaluing your blog. Good to know these things
??? Adsense bad???/