Making money beyond adsense by selling ads directly
posted at 05:28 AM - Category: Advertising
Jacob at Blogging Pro writes about "Other Blogging Revenues" in which he suggests that directly selling ads can earn you more money than Adsense. I agree. He said he's had no trouble selling ads, that advertisers came to him. This might not be the case for everyone and I have a tip that has worked well for me. It might not work for everyone, but the concept can be adapted to suit your needs.
I run several writing sites and two of them are quite big. They do about half a million page views a month and in the 10's of thousands of visitors each month. I wanted to get some advertisers to offset the cost of hosting and grow the sites so I went to the bookstore and picked up a couple of issues of all the major writing magazines. I went through each one and made a list of companies who were advertising, right down to their classifieds section, and started contacting them to buy ads directly on my sites. This is working very well for me! By doing this you know that these people are interested in targeting your audience and are actively buying advertising. This cuts down on some of the sale cycle trying to convince people to advertise. Expanding on this idea a little bit, I decided to look at people advertising on my competitors sites and also people advertising on Overture and Adsense.
The bottom line is that people are out there advertising already, find them and get them to spend some of their advertising dollars with you!
Sep 07, 2005
Sep 01, 2005
JenSense case study comparing AdSense & YPN
posted at 08:39 AM - Category: Advertising
JenSense has a great case study comparing AdSense & YPN on her Womens-Finance.com site. If you are considering trying out the Yahoo Publisher Network then you should check this out. Jen covers Overall earning, CTR, eCPM, EPC, Actual clicks, and Relevancy as well as her insights on how they compared in general. It seems they were pretty evenely matched in her study.
posted at 08:39 AM - Category: Advertising
JenSense has a great case study comparing AdSense & YPN on her Womens-Finance.com site. If you are considering trying out the Yahoo Publisher Network then you should check this out. Jen covers Overall earning, CTR, eCPM, EPC, Actual clicks, and Relevancy as well as her insights on how they compared in general. It seems they were pretty evenely matched in her study.
Aug 26, 2005
Is selling or buying text links unethical?
posted at 09:52 AM - Category: Advertising
Go read Why I don’t sell text links in which Michael Moncur raises the interesting question of whether selling or buying text links is ethical. I posted a comment over there and I'll quote it here too.
posted at 09:52 AM - Category: Advertising
Go read Why I don’t sell text links in which Michael Moncur raises the interesting question of whether selling or buying text links is ethical. I posted a comment over there and I'll quote it here too.
This assumes that the reason for selling the link is PR. The fact is, links do still matter outside of PR. Can you imagine the amount of traffic O'Reilly gets? Those links are worth more than just the PR boost from Google. PR doesn't even factor in to the SERP results as much as it used according to Google.What do you think?
The question that seems to be on the table is "is selling PR ethical", and the answer is no, it's even against the Google's terms. But selling a text link, which is nothing more than a short text ad, is about getting traffic and instead of buying clicks through a PPC, you go to the source. This isn't just ethical, it's good business.
That doesn't take into account the fact that Google might penalize you. Selling PR is against their terms and the fact that selling a link is still selling PR, regardless of the intent, is a side note really. Google is the one forcing that rule. People don't get penalized for buying billboards, or more to the point, for putting ads into a billing insert or another company.
Basically, Google has found a way to create a monopoly on selling text links. If you sell them on your own you might get penalized by Google. I love Google, but I've always disliked this policy.
Adsense Case Study: ScienceDaily.com
posted at 08:30 AM - Category: Advertising
JenSense reports that ScienceDaily.com is the latest AdSense case study. One of the things that stood out for me was the fact that ScienceDaily is using Adsense for Search, something I haven't tried yet. The main turn off for me is the wording that it may actually end up costing me money depending on the number of queries. Not sure if that is still the case, I need to give it a shot and see how it works.
posted at 08:30 AM - Category: Advertising
JenSense reports that ScienceDaily.com is the latest AdSense case study. One of the things that stood out for me was the fact that ScienceDaily is using Adsense for Search, something I haven't tried yet. The main turn off for me is the wording that it may actually end up costing me money depending on the number of queries. Not sure if that is still the case, I need to give it a shot and see how it works.
Aug 23, 2005
Google unveils slew of new features
posted at 09:54 AM - Category: Advertising
Google has released a ton of new features for publishers in the Adsense program. Among them include doubling the tracking channels from 100 to 200, "top keywords" reports, "section targeting" and more. Check out the details over at JenSense.
posted at 09:54 AM - Category: Advertising
Google has released a ton of new features for publishers in the Adsense program. Among them include doubling the tracking channels from 100 to 200, "top keywords" reports, "section targeting" and more. Check out the details over at JenSense.
Aug 19, 2005
Weblog Empire launches 7th blot - Windows Visa Weblog
posted at 08:16 AM - Category: Advertising
Duncan is on a roll with his Weblog Empire (still really love the name) and with this latest launch brings the number of blogs under his banner to 7. I think he's picked a really good topic as interest builds for the next version of the Windows operating system.
posted at 08:16 AM - Category: Advertising
Growing Weblog network Weblog Empire, run by Blog Herald founder and editor Duncan Riley, has announced the launch of its 7th blog: The (unofficial) Windows Vista Weblog, a blog covering news, views and gossip about the next generation of Microsoft's Windows Operating System due for release in 2006.
Duncan is on a roll with his Weblog Empire (still really love the name) and with this latest launch brings the number of blogs under his banner to 7. I think he's picked a really good topic as interest builds for the next version of the Windows operating system.
Aug 18, 2005
How not to get banned by Google Adsense
posted at 10:21 PM - Category: Advertising
Jen posted this link to the Inside Adsense wehre the Adsense team shares some of the top ways to make sure you don't get banned from being an Adsense publisher. You can't visit a webmaster forum these days without someone crying how they got kicked out of adsense without doing anything. Usually, visiting the site makes it pretty clear what they did, so most people who read this site will already be following the rules. Still, I highly suggest checking them out to make sure you haven't forgotten anything or haven't picked up any bad habits from watching what some of the more shady webmaster types are up to.
Via JenSense. Be sure to check out Jen's comments.
posted at 10:21 PM - Category: Advertising
Jen posted this link to the Inside Adsense wehre the Adsense team shares some of the top ways to make sure you don't get banned from being an Adsense publisher. You can't visit a webmaster forum these days without someone crying how they got kicked out of adsense without doing anything. Usually, visiting the site makes it pretty clear what they did, so most people who read this site will already be following the rules. Still, I highly suggest checking them out to make sure you haven't forgotten anything or haven't picked up any bad habits from watching what some of the more shady webmaster types are up to.
Via JenSense. Be sure to check out Jen's comments.
Aug 16, 2005
Google Adwords & Adsense blogs: Inside AdWords, Inside AdSense
posted at 10:24 PM - Category: Advertising
From JenSense:
Jen always has the good scoops. This should be an excellent resource for both publishers and advertisers. I hope they publish some good stuff. I know we could all use the "inside" tips. Go check out the Inside Adwords blog and the Inside AdSense blog.
posted at 10:24 PM - Category: Advertising
From JenSense:
If you are an Adwords advertiser - or even an AdSense publisher - the new Inside AdWords blog is a must-have feed to add to your reader. Inside Adwords is powered by Blogger (of course!) and the Inside Adwords is run by Andrew, Blake, Vivian, and Jon.
Jen always has the good scoops. This should be an excellent resource for both publishers and advertisers. I hope they publish some good stuff. I know we could all use the "inside" tips. Go check out the Inside Adwords blog and the Inside AdSense blog.
Aug 03, 2005
Does the Yahoo Publisher Network Mean More Money for Adsense Publishers?
posted at 08:51 AM - Category: Advertising
Yahoo began accepting beta testers for their Yahoo Publisher Network, their answer to Google's wildly successful Adsense program for publishers. The program looks like a great alternative and I suspect that many people who were either turned down, turned off, or kicked out by Google will flock to the service. In addition, many webmasters who just want to add another source of advertising to their sites will also join the network.
So my question is, will enough publishers join the Yahoo network to make Adsense ads perk up a bit? If enough people leave that means more advertising dollars may get shown through my sites. Possibly, anyway. I doubt Yahoo will lure long time Adsense publishers away without offering some serious incentive to do so.
I'm looking forward to trying out the program, but I also hope that a lot of people join it so that I get more of the high paying clicks on my Google ads!
posted at 08:51 AM - Category: Advertising
Yahoo began accepting beta testers for their Yahoo Publisher Network, their answer to Google's wildly successful Adsense program for publishers. The program looks like a great alternative and I suspect that many people who were either turned down, turned off, or kicked out by Google will flock to the service. In addition, many webmasters who just want to add another source of advertising to their sites will also join the network.
So my question is, will enough publishers join the Yahoo network to make Adsense ads perk up a bit? If enough people leave that means more advertising dollars may get shown through my sites. Possibly, anyway. I doubt Yahoo will lure long time Adsense publishers away without offering some serious incentive to do so.
I'm looking forward to trying out the program, but I also hope that a lot of people join it so that I get more of the high paying clicks on my Google ads!
Jul 29, 2005
User Generated Content May Be a Problem for Advertisers and Publishers
posted at 08:43 AM - Category: Advertising
Tribal Fusion sent out an email newsletter with some troublesome news. If this becomes a trend for advertising companies like Tribal Fusion, Fast Click and others, it could mean a drop in revenue for many Webmasters. ...Read More
posted at 08:43 AM - Category: Advertising
Tribal Fusion sent out an email newsletter with some troublesome news. If this becomes a trend for advertising companies like Tribal Fusion, Fast Click and others, it could mean a drop in revenue for many Webmasters. ...Read More