Welcome back to the third part to ‘How to Sell Ads on Your Blog Despite It’s Size’. In part one, I told you why you should cut out the middle man in order to make money online. In part 2, I broke down the three main ad spots on a blog. Now, it’s time to reveal the most important part about tossing adsense to the curb and going on your own- actually selling the space.
Here are ways you can efficiently and quickly sell advertisement spots on your blog.
Make an ‘Advertise’ Page
Devote an entire individual page on your blog to selling ads. This allows interested advertisers to always have access to information regarding ad space. If advertisers have to search to find out, they won’t!
On your Advertise page, be sure to include:
- Stats: (pagerank, alexa, technorati, rss readers) Even if it’s not impressive, you still have to let them know.
- Ad Types (sidebar, links, header, in post)
- Availability of Ads (how many of each ad, if it’s available in a few months or immediately)
- Price: Very important, duh!
- Contact Information: Provide a link to your Contact page, an e-mail, or a contact form right there. How else are you going to sell those ads?
- Testimonials: If you have had previous advertisers, make them give a testimonial and show it off!
Write a Post
This is the best way to get immediate exposure to anyone that visits your blog. Write about it! The information you provide should either include similar information to what would be on an Advertise page, or you can just give a quick overview of the ad type and price, and link to your Advertise page for more information.
Buy a Review
Well it’s like they say: you’ve got to spend money to make money. If you’re ad prices will cover the cost and make a profit from what you spend on the review, and the ad prices are reasonable, then buying a review could turn out to be really helpful in getting those ad spots sold in a hurry. You might even gain new readers! Exposure, and money. Sounds good to me.
Find the Advertisers
This is the most effective way to sell ads, regardless of what anyone else says. Unless of course your blog is like John Chow/Problogger popular, than just skip this part. But, if you have a small blog than this is what you have to do. Don’t sit and wait for the advertisers to come to you.
This method is so unbelievably useful, I have some tips to include for when you have the balls to go and get the money advertisers.
- Remember your manners. You can (and should) use the same things you’d use with forming a good blogger relationship.
- Do not fear rejection. There are tons of people that get a crap load of e-mails each day. And there are plenty more people that are just plain rude and won’t respond. Don’t be afraid. After at least two days, give up on them and move on. This will happen a lot!
- Offer a one time deal. If you seem to have someone who’s like “eh, I don’t know, I’ll think about it” than you have to make a move. Don’t just accept it and wait. Give them a discount or offer them extra time if they purchase the ad now.
- Ask more than you can hold. If you have 6 ad spots available, contact 10 people. This is because you will have people that won’t reply, or say no. If you actually get replies from more people than you can give ad space to, give the spots fairly to the first ones that replied back, and let the other interested advertisers know that the spots have been taken, apologize, and tell them you will let them know when the spots become available again. This will make it easier to sell the next open spots.
And on that note, this concludes the ‘How to Sell Ads on Your Blog Despite It’s Size’ series. I really enjoy speaking from experience, and I have used/am using all of these ways to sell advertisement spots on my blog. I hope that after reading this series, you have gained a better understanding of, well, how to sell ads on your blog. I also hope that it inspires you to not let “The Man” bring you down and make more money online by privately selling ads.
10-11-2007 22:28:06
Thanks for the list… I have been meaning to do number 1, make an ad page, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I do like the items you suggested to put on the page. thanks, Scott
10-12-2007 00:37:54
Do you really think a solid page of ads is the way to go? This is contrary to the AdSense credo. For my part I have no ads or popups of any kind on my blog, and have long wondered about wading into carrying ads, and which way to jump.
10-12-2007 01:31:16
A very informative series Casey. Did you solicite advertisers specifically as well when you were selling your ad spots awhile back? I know you mentioned their availability in your posts, but did you make the proactive contacts as well? What kind of replies did you get? I can’t stand rejection
10-12-2007 05:36:30
Thanks Scott! If you need references to help you get a better idea, just look at mine, Cash Quests, John Chow, or any popular blog!
10-12-2007 05:37:29
If you don’t want to make money online, than you don’t have to have ads. What do you mean by a solid page pf ads?
10-12-2007 05:42:26
Thanks Court. I did contact advertisers. Most rejections were just people not replying. I PMed a couple of blog owners while searching around digitalpoint, and got a few no’s just because of their budget, or at least that’s what their excuse was. If you do get a rejected reply, just thank the person and leave them alone.
Oh and by the way, I contacted Phil from Contest Blogger and that’s how he purchased an ad. And, he found it ambitious so he made a post about it and from that I sold two more spots.
10-12-2007 10:47:42
Hopefully if I keep this up long enough, somebody will come up with bushmackeral.com ha ha ha. GL with the site.
10-12-2007 10:54:06
Like you Scott, I too have been meaning to get an Advertise page up but haven’t quite gotten around to it yet. I think what I wanted to do was wait until the PR update, but seriously - I’m just losing money waiting around for that to happen. Plus I’ve been taking the time to focus more on my content.
Oh, the work with your blog is never over is it? (#);D
AND BTW Casey, you have a nice little series on your hands. Thanks for all the information. I hope I get around to implementing it, but whether I do or don’t, you’ve at least given me some good stuff to think about.
10-12-2007 11:07:00
That rocks Bush! I might just have to register that now. It will be a profitable domain name flip down the road.
10-12-2007 16:12:57
Thanks Bush! That makes me happy.
10-13-2007 02:02:22
Ha ha. But you can’t be BOTH Courtney TURTLE AND Bush Mackeral!
10-13-2007 02:13:55
I suppose I can’t be Darren GROUSE or Yaro STORK then either.
10-13-2007 08:34:13
Anyone own KnewsMotion yet?
10-13-2007 10:41:05
GnusNotion lol
10-13-2007 15:16:39
I have an ad page. I have yet to buy or sell a review. However I just sold my first private ad. A 125×125 ad spot in my sidebar, so I’m pretty happy about that. Would you mind taking a look at my ad page to see if the prices are ok?
10-13-2007 20:53:59
Though I haven’t yet entered the forum of private ad sales Zach, I know per Casey’s posts in the series that she’s an advocate of posting your stats on your Advertise page which as of right now you don’t look like you have done.
That said though, it looks like your site is grand spankin’ new so with your AR and PR right now, maybe it is better that you don’t post them. But in my opinion, it does look like your advertise page is a bit scant and maybe with some more time you can dress it up a bit more talking about your readers and the blog and so on.
As far as price - I’m not a business major but I think there are certain rules of thumb that can generally be followed in these situations. For instance, if your ads aren’t selling, the price is either WAY too high, or the price is WAY too low. (Often ppl equate price to quality). If you’re consistently selling your ad space month after month, you should probably give some thought to raising your prices.
I’m very eager to hear what others will say about this. Best of luck!
10-13-2007 20:58:16
KnewsMotion!? That’s not an animal is it?!
10-14-2007 01:18:00
You have very interesting insight.
10-14-2007 06:26:15
Thanks. Your right, I have basically no stats worth putting up, except for maybe my RSS count, but I think I’ll lower the prices a little bit, and then I just have to wait.
10-14-2007 09:20:08
Your hosting is slooooowwwww. Wow, it’s taken me over 10 minutes to go to your homepage, than get to the Advertise page. I hope this is temporary!
Now that I’m there, I think $18 is too pricey for a sidebar ad for your site. But, since you already sold one, if you can sell more for that price than stick to it. If not, I would lower it to a 10-15 dollar price range.
10-16-2007 02:18:54
I read your whole series, found via Courtney Tuttle’s blog, and I have to say I’m really impressed! I didn’t know about your blog before but I’m definitely subscribing now.
10-16-2007 05:31:57
Thanks! I’m glad you liked the series!
10-17-2007 01:16:04
I had left a comment previously but it shows up as blank? Any idea why this happened?
10-17-2007 14:51:16
Great article.
But I would say you still need a good amount of traffic to be able to sell anything on your blog.
10-17-2007 18:45:29
Not sure where this is. But, it looks like you can post comments now. Sorry for that!
10-17-2007 18:47:22
True. But then again, even less than that. If you can put the right price on your blog, you can sell ad spots.