I have been a BuySellAds publisher almost since they started off their service a couple of years back. And I have earned decent amount of money through them, which is what makes me a big fan of Buysellads. In between, I deactivated all my BSA ad zones and focused on my Google Adsense revenue program. Now I have completed my minimum threshold of $100 on Google Adsense and do not plan to use their advertisements ever again on any of my websites. They pay peanuts.

So I moved back faithfully to my BuySellAds direct ad program, thinking that I will at least be paid flat rates every month. So in my three months hiatus from BSA, I noticed hundreds of new publishers in the same niche as mine. And I also noticed that BSA started adding new niches of websites into their inventory for advertisers. No complains there. It helps a wider range of publishers get accepted into the BuySellAds program and at the same time, advertisers from varied industries now have better and competitive options.

But, there was no denying the fact that Buysellads had got more competitive and difficult to make money from as compared to earlier days of their service.

I quickly set up my ad zones – at least there were fewer changes in that area.

Changes in BuySellAds

So the major changes that Buysellads has made are:

• It has increased the number of parameters that advertisers can see in your directory listing. At the same time, now BSA gives an option to publishers for selecting/de-select parameters they do not want to share in their directory listing. Its a good option for publishers since now we can show the best parameters of one’s blog. For example, my blog does not have a decent Google Pagerank so I hold it from public view to advertisers.
• Introduction of new categories for different blog niches. They now have categories dedicated humor, automotive and entertainment. They started off as ad brokers for only technology blogs.  Now they have around 10 categories for different kinds of blogs. This is good because it helps in easing the number of blogs in a single category and prevents overcrowding.
• It has become easier to get accepted into BSA. And the most simple trick to get accepted into BSA is just to have a blog that looks good. They have literally stopped caring about the traffic that your website might be getting. There was a time when 100,000 views were the criteria for them to take you into their program. I have seen blogs as old as 3 months being accepted.

 BuySellAds Gets Competitive

All this has resulted in

Buysellads has successfully managed to cut ad rates for their advertisers. At least the price for medium traffic blogs have come down drastically due to the high volume of them in the BSA directory. For example, the category where I am listed in “Business and Marketing”- there are about 1700 other websites listed. This is just one single category I talk about. So it becomes very difficult to stand out and get advertisers to put money into your ad space.

Even on Collegefallout, the ad space from BSA is priced dirt cheap. It is only then that I have managed to sell two spots of the three spots I offer.

All in all, it has become very competitive for a blogger to make huge revenue of BSA unless his traffic stats exceed 100,000.

An issue I noticed was that publishers are erratically listing their blog in any category they desire rather than the one which is most suitable. Something which is irritating to advertisers and bothersome to other publishers. This is something the BSA team should take care of.

What are your views on the Buysell ads advertisement program getting competitive?

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!

Every bloggers has an ultimate aim of building up lots of readers and a loyal subscriber base. But to achieve that pinnacle is not easy, there are many things that you need to do in order to reach it. But at the same time you should also remember that things which you should not do or avoid when you blog.

Here are some thing that you should not do in your blog:

Excess Advertisements

The number one turn off in most blogs, not only beginner blogs but also those of pro-bloggers are the ads. I personally find ads very intrusive and they highly degrade the reading quality. An organized separate section for ads is the best option. Pop-up ads are one of the most intrusive kind of advertisement.

Don’t Write Essays

When you write for a blog, make sure you don’t write essays. Make your posts crispy and informative. An ideal number of words in a blog post should be 250-400 words. Unfortunately, some blogger end up writing articles of 1000 words – such length of articles will not be suitable for keeping your readers attention.

Don’t Look Desperate

Promote your RSS feed and do encourage your visitors to subscribe to your blog. But do not come across too desperate as that will repel your readers from doing so. The same also applies to Social bookmarking – do not end up begging readers to bookmark your content, they will almost surely not do it. Instead write such good content that your readers will bookmark it themselves.

Don’t Ignore

When a reader comments on your blog, respect the time he has taken out to visit and comment on your blog. Blogging is all about networking and you should keep the spirit in the same way. You should always socialize and reply to comments which you receive.

So ensure that a few poor blogging habits end up damaging the potential which you can achieve.

Enjoy your blogging!