A Guest Post by Tom Walker
Although there are many people in this world who blog for pleasure and to share information with others, it goes without saying that there are also those who blog purely for profit. Blogging is a fantastic strategy to create an income, or to increase your current income; you just have to go about it the right way. Regardless of whether your blog is new, or is one that has been around for some time, there are steps you can take to increase your success with direct advertising.
Image Credit: Daveness_98
Here are 7 ways to improve your blog in order to make it advertiser friendly, appealing, and a money generator. We will start with the most crucial basics for a successful blog and then move on with other useful suggestions.
1. Unique, High Quality Content
This cannot be stated clearly enough! Having loads of content that is well written, informative and related to a specific topic or niche, will win hands down every time. A blog that has general information on a range of topics may have greater difficulty in serving the needs of potential advertisers, and advertisers won’t even bother looking at your site if there is limited, or no relevant content. Potential advertisers will evaluate the content of your site in order to determine if it matches their product and service, and this is one of the most significant factors during their decision making process.
2. Popularity
Along with great content also comes popularity. A popular site with lots of comments and feedback will be a definite draw card for potential advertisers. If you have a lot of traffic and subscribers to your blog, you have a greater chance of attracting advertising companies or in being successful if you are the one approaching them.
3. Attractive Blog Design
Make sure your site is reader friendly yet professional. Have a look at your pages, or ask an independent person to view them, in order to determine if the pages look ‘messy’ or if they are clear and concise. A blog with an unprofessional design will detract from the direct advertising that is placed there, and advertisers already know this and will steer clear!
4. Advertising Rate Card
Show the potential company that you are looking for advertisements by creating an information page that refers directly to them. This page should be extremely informative from an advertising perspective and should therefore include:
- A statement of what you have to offer
- Readership numbers
- Number of RSS subscribers
- Payment options – both type and frequency
- Contact information
- Testimonials from current advertisers
This list is not exhaustive, however it should provide you with a basic starting point. This information will also reveal your ethics and professionalism, so make sure you get this part right!
5. Recommendations
Using the term ‘recommendation’ when referring to a particular company or product will attract the attention of advertisers. Having been in the business for a long time, pushing the hard sell will often backfire. Advertisers want to know that their click though rate is going to be high, if you are gently encouraging your readers, their chance of this click through is much higher and they will be more open to the possibility of doing business with you.
6. Communication
Ensure your blog demonstrates clear and timely communication. This is in regards to your viewers and your blog posts firstly, and then you will need to continue timely communication with potential and current advertisers. Just because a company has agreed to do business with you doesn’t mean you can sit back and just wait for it all to happen. Respond to emails as soon as possible, and if you respond personally, you will tick a few more boxes. Simply directing the query elsewhere, responding with an automatic email, or not responding at all, will probably leave you without any income from direct advertising when they pull the plug.
7. Detailed Traffic Statistics & Visitor Analysis
You could provide this information up-front in order to show a potential client just how popular your site is, and there are many clients that would find this information extremely valuable if they were looking to do business with you. However, you also need to remember that this kind of specific information is really useless if your blog information is not content rich and doesn’t match with the type of audience the advertising company is looking for. Therefore, although useful, it is really the first 4 points that are the most critical in determining your future success.
Tom Walker is a blogger working with a supplier of HP 339 ink cartridges, toners and refills. For his latest posts about advertising, art and design, visit their blog.
Hey, Erica, very timely and good advice. I think a lot of bloggers fall short at #4 which would indicate having a business mind-set. You have to not only show that your site has the content, readership, and looks good – you have to show that you're a business owner as well [not just a "hobby blogger].
This spills into #6 as well. It's a business relationship. Just because you got the sales doesn't mean the relationship is over . . . it's just beginning! I would suggest;
- creating an advertiser only newsletter to keep them updated with blog developments
- highlighting your advertisers in short blog posts (be sure to indicate that this is a “sponsored” post
- using WP plugins to rotate banner ads, and automatically publish advertiser banners at the bottom of each post.
Just my 2 cents. – Good work, Erica!
Thanks for the kind words, Rod, but credit goes to Tom for the fabulous
guest post!
Ooo, I hadn't even thought of an advertiser's only email list! That is a
fabulous idea!
Very good additions to the list!
This has come JUST in the nick of time for a project my church is working on…thank you!!
Thanks for the correction, Erica.
An advertiser only email is definitely a great move to keep them in the loop, maybe even publish other advertiser's info for a “directory”, and add value for them doing business with you.
Good points Rod – we started an advertisers newsletter with our travel blog, and give them the chance to feed their news and details to us, so they're involved in the site as well. So far, we haven't lost a single advertiser, so it seems to be working.
That's great Mike. – see?, I'm not so crazy after all!
Very informative post by Tom and great feedback in the comments section as well. I've certainly picked up a few pointers here.
Great stuff – thanks for hosting this, Erica.
It's amazing how advertisers place so much emphasis on stats. While they certainly have a legit purpose. They can be misinterpreted as well and manipulated. If I wanted to I can show 10 000 visitors per day on my stats.
The rest of the points are pretty much self explanatory and very necessary.
I am starting to doubt whether my site is any use for affiliates, banners, ads etc. Just checking on my Commission Junction account and one affiliate clickable banner has had 305 clicks but no take ups! Bit of luck I'm not only in this for the money, to paraphrase a Mothers of Invention album title!
Glad you found it helpful, Mike! Would love to hear about your church's project!
So true, Robert. I think it is up to us to educate marketers on the variables of stats, the quality over quantity of visitors, and how all this stuff works. Marketers are all about numbers, which is why they don't understand blogging… bloggers are about community. I think building a relationship with our few readers gives us a much greater advantage… people trust what we say, offer, and allow on our sites.
Kevin, I am the same way. I've tried affiliate banners of all kinds, for years. Other than my Ink Grabber badge, which my dad's engineering company uses to buy all their ink, I haven't made a cent on regular affiliate programs. BUT, if it's something I'm crazy passionate about, like Beyond Blogging, and I actually write about and promote it, then I make some money. So, I've gone to having a Resources page where I go ahead and link to some affiliate programs I believe in. I'll continue to try a random program or two in the sidebar, and if it works, great, but I'm not counting on it.
My blog is (still) not up yet but this is very good info to know. Thanks.
@MrMomWorld
[...] The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can blog about the product your marketing, thus creating your own sales copy and selling in your own words. You can also start making some money before your blog is big enough to attract direct advertisers. [...]
So, my question is: how do you determine if your blog is “popular”? Or, WHO/WHAT determines what is popular: is it a niche, is it a certain number of daily/monthly visitors, is it location-based? It’s so subjective, and I’m curious what kind of numbers these potential advertisers — either local or globally — are looking for…
Mel,
I think it really depends on the niche. Some topics are really
overwhelmed from a blog standpoint, and it takes a lot more traffic to
become a popular blog in that niche than another. I think you can guage
some on your own, based on traffic, and how many people come back again
and again. Also, by checking your analytic for search terms people are
using to reach your site. I know for me, this is the best gauge, because
in the tech niche, people don’t comment a lot. I can look at my stats
and see that 30 people found me this month when searching for ‘wordpress
menu tutorial’ and I know exactly what post came up and that they found
what they needed, even if they didn’t take time to comment and tell me
so. It depends too on your goal. Is your goal to just help people
(tutorials/articles) or to engage and converse? In the later case, you’d
measure by how many people are conversing on your topics, and how many
of them are repeat commentors.
Being considered ‘popular’ is different for each site and niche, and
company. I’ve had very large companies choose to work with me, based on
specific posts or conversations held on my blogs, and others who won’t
because I don’t have over so many visitors per month.
If you want to know the numbers they are looking for, ask. It really
doesn’t hurt to pitch your blog to them, instead of waiting for them to
come to you. Gary V has a fabulous video up about cold call marketing TO
companies and I think everyone should watch it!
http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/78967452/want-to-get-advertisers-on-your-blogvlog-go-and-get-it
Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback!