How to Get Ads on Your Blog
2017.05.12
(11 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Writing a blog is a great way to earn extra income. There are several ways to monetize your blog from adding affiliate links to products, utilizing e-commerce platforms to sell products, and the main one that we are going to cover today – adding other businesses’ ads for your website.
It may seem like adding ads to your site is a no-brainer. You add a piece of code and that’s it, the money just starts appearing in your bank account. However, it is not always that easy.
Making Your Site Attractive to Advertisers
In order to make your blog attractive to different businesses, there are a few different things to consider. Your blog needs to have a niche market. High traffic numbers to your blog show potential partners that your website will actually generate clicks to their products. The final element is the placement you can offer for the company’s ad itself.
If your blog does not have these elements in line yet, there are ways to fix that. A few of the easiest ways to get these stats up and make your blog appealing for businesses are below.
1. Start with an affiliate product promotion. Jump into a product that fits into the niche of your blog, try out the product, and add a link to the product after writing a glowing review. When people click on your link to this product, AND they purchase from said link, you will receive a commission from the sale. It’s an easy way to earn money by promoting someone’s product.
Affiliate programs vary from website to website to website. Make sure to study different options before committing to one.
2. Use Google AdSense to drive traffic to your blog. Using this program allows you to not only drive traffic and boost your blog visitors, but these ads that run along the side or top of your website will generate money to you each time a user clicks on them.
Each ad is relevant to the content on your blog, which means your niche market stays happy and doesn’t see items that do not pertain to their interests.
3. Talk directly to companies and ask if you can add their product to your blog. This may seem like a sales pitch (and it is!), but reaching out and asking a company if they would allow you to advertise their business on your website for a small fee, may generate some amazing sales.
Small local businesses are great places to start, especially if you can prove that your website will generate a few additional sales for their business as well.
How to Put Ads on Your Blog and Make Money
Now that we understand how to generate interest in advertising on your blog, it is time to find companies that you want to work with.
There are different advertising companies around the globe that can help promote your blog to different companies looking to purchase ad space. Magenet, have been in the advertising world for decades, and have a book of business ready to purchase.
You don’t need to find the advertisers – they do the work for you. They will even set up payment options and make sure that you are getting the most money possible for each ad placed on your website.
Magenet will even take care of physically putting the ads on your website with Universal Plugin – so you don’t have to worry about adding the code to your website and updating each time a new business wants to advertise with you!
Ad Placement
Let’s talk about where to place ads on a blog. Magenet requires that all ads are placed within the content of your pages, and that the ads are surrounded by relevant content. All of the rules that we will discuss for ad placement are great rules of thumb, not just for magenet customers, but everyone!
1. Use natural content writing to advertise the product, and link the keywords to the businesses’ website. For example, if you sell an ad space for windows, write a blog post related to home window decorating, lightening up a room using new window coverings, or even about replacing all of the windows in your home – and make sure that part of the blog post links to your advertiser’s site.
If you provide ads in this form, as opposed to freestanding ads along the top and sidebars of your site, you can earn up to three times more revenue from sales.
2. Make sure that the ad is on any required pages. Some advertisers want to be seen on your home page and no others. Some may decide that they want their ads on a blog that will allow them to post on multiple pages. Whichever option they chose, make sure you are providing the ad space they are paying for.
3. Make sure that you place ads on a blog within the allotted time frames. Advertisers expect to see their ads up and running within a certain number of days, and expect them to last through the duration of the advertising time that they paid for. Magenet will provide timelines to you, and if these are not followed, you may encounter delays with payments.
4. Ads need to be easily visible. This goes without saying, but advertisers are paying for ad space to be seen. They do not want their ads hidden in bodies of text that no one will read or on pages that are infrequently visited. Do not attempt to hide ads, as this only hurts your performance in the long run.
Moral of the story – ads can be placed anywhere on your website that will accept an HTML text block. However, it is important to note that advertisers will pay for specific space on specific pages of your website, and want to see their ads during the assigned period of time.
Finding the Right Type of Ads
When it comes to ads for your blog, choosing the right type of ads, and the combinations of ads is important. While the concept of adding ads on a blog seems relatively simple, remembering a few steps regarding content can help you make the most money possible when using advertisements.
1. Consider Your Audience! We talked about this earlier, but when you put ads on your blog and make money, you need to consider the audience that you’re targeting, or the money will NOT start to pour in as anticipated. You need to understand the product you are selling, and who it pertains to in the marketplace.
For example… if you are selling a product to help IT Departments work more efficiently, your content needs to revolve around the IT world and target proper keywords to drive traffic to your site. You will want to research the product, and add words like “project management” or “IT efficiency” into your copy – and really target the audience you are trying to sell.
2. Consider the type of ads for your blog. There are a few different types of ads that you can add to your blog. These range from display ads (also known as banner ads), text ads, and ads for specific social sites like Facebook or Twitter.
Banner ads are the most common ads that you’ll see on websites that you visit, and generally drive the eye to the product quickly. These ads come in different sizes, graphics, and designs. They are effective for people that don’t realize they’re looking for a new product because they are so prominently displayed on the top, sidebar, middle, or bottom of a webpage. They’re extremely useful, and each website hoping to make money from ads on a blog should add banner ads to their portfolio.
Text ads are ads that you see on search engine pages. They are generally less money (which means fewer commissions for the websites hosting them!), but are targeted to customers that want to buy something specific. This is a good option to mix in with your banner ads, if applicable.
Testing Out the Results
Research for any product or new marketing technique is important. However, when you are expected to generate additional revenue for businesses that aren’t yours, putting together a test plan to ensure that things are working properly is a great idea.
While we talked about the different rules for placement of ads on a blog, it’s important to keep track of how much money you generate from each campaign. This will show you just how effective the content that you’re writing is for selling additional products.
Are visitors to your site clicking on your links? If not, why? Ask yourself a few questions:
- Is the link seen enough that users can easily see and click on it?
- Does the text that links make sense within the context of the post?
- Is the link relevant to the rest of my website?
- Is the text linked properly, or does it go to a dead link?
Testing helps not only you generate more income but will be appreciated from advertisers as well, as they will get more and more money from the traffic you drive to their product!
It’s extremely important to change up the placement of your content links within a blog post if they aren’t performing as needed.
Banner and text ads are a little different, but the same principles pertain. Make sure that the ads are actually being clicked on and not just passed up by users to get to more relevant content. Ensure that the banners are clear, crisp, and look good – if not, get the advertiser involved and tell them you need a new image.
Putting it all Together
While advertising on your blog is a great way to make money, it isn’t just as simple as adding a few lines of code or a graphic to the sidebar of your site and watching your bank account increase.
However, if you are savvy enough to take advertising on your blog into your own hands, the information in this article will help ensure that you are covering all the main points of adding ads to a blog, and will help you make money as quickly as possible.
We’d love to hear from you on this topic and what strategies that you use to keep ads relevant and generating income on your blogs. Talk to us in the comments about anything that we missed that would help out future marketers!
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