Do blogs really need an “advertise” page anymore? This is the question which popped up in my mind after a prospective advertiser used the Contact form to get in touch with me regarding advertising.

Do We Need "Advertise Here" Page?

You should know that I do not have an Advertise page on this blog. Because, an advertise page has data that changes almost every month and moreover, I only need to disclose the ad rates to prospective clients.

Frankly speaking, having an advertise page is rather ineffective. If you think that having an advertise page can help you land more advertisers, then you think wrong!

The days have passed when all bloggers diligently placed an Advertise page on their header. Most advertisers hardly look at the page. The worst part is that more often than not, the site statistics on the page are shown outdated – which looks really unprofessional.

Some Benefits of NOT having an Advertise page:

• Complete privacy from competitors while quoting your ad rates.
• You can give real-time site statistics to your prospective advertiser.
• By not having an ad page you have the ability to negotiate your ad rates. If you put up rates on the Advertise page – it may be too much for an advertiser and he/she may not bother to contact you. Whereas, when an advertiser contacts you, both the seller and advertiser have a chance to negotiate pricing which satisfies both of them.

There is no risk involved when you forgo the Advertise page. As anyone who is interested in advertising on your site will finally use the Contact form to get in touch with you.

This guest post was brought to you by Tom Walker who is a writer for an online store offering HP supplies. When he isn’t guest posting, Tom edits and writes posts about advertising and design for the CreativeCloud.

In today’s world, it is all about the marketing. There are a number of standards that a website is required to live up to in order to get the advertisers flocking to the page. Likewise, there are a number of ways that will stop them in their tracks altogether, never noticing a website to begin with. Things that stop an advertiser from approaching your blog:

1. Being Out of Date:

If you are not up to date, or if you are inconsistent in posts while taking long breaks in between posts, advertisers will not notice you. They will feel as if though you are not around enough to have an audience, and without an audience, who will see their ads?

2. Poor Blog Design:

Advertisers enjoy a website that is easy to navigate and has easily visible sections dedicated to their ads. If the design is poor, meaning it has a poor selection of colors that make it difficult to see, or if ads are so far out of the way that hardly anybody will see them, or if the blog is so difficult to navigate, advertisers are not going to feel comfortable approaching you for purchasing a slot.

3. No Unique Information Available:

Maybe the advertisers do want to put an ad on your website. However, if you do not have a set page designated for informing hopeful advertisers where to contact you, how to contact you or how much your advertisement space will cost, then they simply cannot put ads on your website. Do not forget to go the extra mile and make it a clear, concise figure where it is easily visible from the first, starting page.

4. Changing Domains & Branding:

If you are constantly changing new websites or changing the domain altogether, it will be impossible for anybody to find you, let alone advertisers. Do not get discouraged if they are not all piling on your door from the first day – after all, Rome was not built in a day. It will take some time for the website to build popularity, meaning it will take some time before advertisers notice you are on the Internet.

5. Writing Waffle Instead of Concisely:

Though not as tasty as the similarly sounding breakfast item, advertisers will be turned off by bloggers who post an abundance of content that do not relate to one another or are a confusing mess to try and follow on a website. If you are going to discuss the latest movies, do not think out loud and type out your recollection of the time you fell off the swings and how you were reminded of that because there was a park in one of the movies for all of two seconds. Advertisers prefer a concise manner of words over a nonsensical verbosity.

6. Prolonged Inactivity:

If you do not market yourself or tell anybody that your website exists, how is anyone going to find it, let alone advertisers?

7. Clutter:

Advertisers will not look forward to buying your ad space if you are going to clutter up the website with an abundance of videos or flashing banners or any other similar content, especially near where the advertisement would be placed. It is a distraction that will draw attention away from the advertisement, which is the polar opposite of what the advertiser is looking for.

8. Lack of Visitor Demographics:

As it was stated before, advertisers want a website that has a large enough audience. If they do not know right away how popular your website is, or how many people it reaches per day, they may not feel comfortable reaching out to you for advertising space.

9. Copyscape Says No:

Advertisers will not want to be associated with you if your website is full of copy and paste information that is only unique to the person who originally wrote it elsewhere. Like a previous tip, not only is it important to have up to date information, it is important that the content is unique.

10. Practicing introvert methods:

If you don’t reach out to the advertisers, they may not find you, and it is important to get those first couple of ads in order for others to notice you are there.

Do Leave your comments and thoughts!

How to advertise and market yourself as bloggers is an important question. But before we get there, we should see what are the best ads which the world has to offer. These ads are so effective that you would be compelled to be sold out. Here are some awesome ads:

Can you market your affiliate products and your website this well?

Hope You Had Fun.

As if PPC  advertisers like Google Adsense, Adbrite were not enough – QueryAds has made an entry into a highly competitive market. Query Ads puts live search engine traffic keywords to work for advertisers – one difference being that they eliminate the usage of broad keywords, more specific keywords are bid.QueryAds has a minimum payout of $50. Another advantage I found was that they accept PayPal. If you are an advertiser or a publisher, you can add and withdraw fund from QueryAds with your Paypal account. Currently, they are not offering checks.

Interested publishers can sign up for QueryAds, although I really doubt the level of interest that webmasters may have. They do not accept each publisher site immediately. QueryAds review each site submitted within 1-2 business days.

One nice feature I find is that advertisers can initiate campaign in QueryAds with only $10 as their budget. This will allow small scale bloggers like me to take leverage – if interested in promoting a blog with ads.

The remainder of the features remain all the same, you can customize the layout of your ad and all your ads will be keyword targeted. If interested you can join QueryAds as a publisher or advertiser here.

If you browse the internet a lot, then you may have seen a lot of ads invading ad slots that promise stunning sparkling teeth and a super-flat abdomen – Not Any More. Google has stuck to its Do No Evil policy and banned all advertisers who violate Google’s Terms and Conditions to display such ads on the biggest advertising network on the internet.

Most of these sites that “guarantee” whiter teeth and flatter abs dupe you into giving your credit card numbers – charge exorbitant money and never return your calls when you want to cancel. People are fooled into trusting these scammers when they click on the ads to reach their homepage.

Earlier Google simply banned the “advertisement” – in a first, Google is taking stringent action against the root of the cause – banning the advertiser itself. The crackdown is meant to focus on all scams—malware, get-rich-quick sites, getting users to pay for otherwise free software, etc.

Although it is true that these ads generated a high click-through rate for the publisher as well. Either ways, it is a good example as a market leader from Google to react heavily against scammers and internet malware.

Whenever a dude wants to monetize his blog, the biggest issue they face is regarding the perfect method of monetization. They have affiliate links, cpm ads and cpc ads. Basically, any kind of Advertising they find under the roof. This is a very Incorrect and Unprofitable way to monetize your site. The reason for this is that when you have included too many streams of income, you may achieve a little bit of everything – and that may not be enough for a payout.

You may quit mid-way and become frustrated at the fact that you are some 20 or 10 dollars short of payout. It is very frustrating trust me. Moreover, too many types of ads may become a big reason for turn-off for a visitor. Most visitors wont mind ads – unless you keep irritating them with unnecessary pop-ups and sure-to-fail products.

My advice is that focus on a single stream of income. If you really like to experiment on all the streams of income like many pro-bloggers, my suggestion would be to have more blogs under your umbrella. That again means more of daily updating and more hardwork.

There are many ways to monetize your blog -

1. pay-per-click
2. pay-per-mille-impression
3. affiliate
4. text-links
5. Direct Ad Sales

Of which, Pay-per-click is perhaps the most popular and Direct Sales are the most sought-after kind of advertising by webmasters. Direct Ad spot sales are compatible with any kind of blogs, however, affiliate selling may not suit everyone. Text-links are again a non-intrusive form of advertising and you should definitely consider it.

The main decision you need to make is regarding whether you prefer Pay-per-click or Pay-per-Mille or Affiliate. Don’t do all three together or either of the two together. You are most likely to lose any prospective income you otherwise could have earned.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Do comment.