If you have a website and are really pumped up to turn it into a money-making machine, advertising on it to people who might be interested is the way to go. Don’t take our word for it, listen to the pros. Not only that, it’s by far the fastest and scale-friendly method from the get-go. In the vast landscape of website advertising, there is a myriad of options and lots of cherry picking to be done. To help you choose the fast(est) route to transforming your site into a money bank, we’re weighing in with our two cents.
When talking about advertising online, probably the first options that come to mind of many bloggers and website owners are Google and Facebook. Rightfully so – two of the biggest tech companies in the world have the biggest market share and audience reach. With a largely outsized role in shaping the online advertising world, it almost looks like the choice has already been made for you. However, there’s more than meets the eye here, especially with Google AdSense, usually the first choice for working with an ad network.
The process is pretty straightforward: upon signing up with the network, it automatically places ads on your site based on a small piece of code in your content and according to its topic. With AdSense, there’s tons and tons of competition because it’s the most popular and almost automatic choice for many. It takes time to see results, which is far and away from making a quick buck. You’re more than welcome to explore many alternatives on the market. In fact, we encourage you to do so.
With ad networks in play, one of the key factors to take into account are the types of ads your target audience will find interesting and valuable. Be it video ads, banner or display ads, pop ads, basic text ads or native advertising, your preferred ad network should offer plenty of choices. After all, a great deal of your revenue will depend on ads’ performance, so pick those that will work best for you.
And that’s just one example of must-have features. This is a demanding process where you have to separate the wheat from the chaff. On the content side of things, you want thorough support that seamlessly integrates to your site’s performance. For instance, RevenueHits has a highly sophisticated optimization engine that supports a website’s ranking and SEO. Your target audience is presented with the most relevant ads, based solely on your content by utilizing smart algorithms that constantly monitor and learn the site’s performance in order to provide better results in real time. In terms of coverage, all kinds of content and context are supported.
Additionally, you need to pay attention to the ad network’s ability to provide transparency both in relation to fraud and payment and pricing practices. Fraud through the use of malware-spreading bots that create fake clicks and impressions and bombardment of pages with low-quality ads, as well as payment and pricing issues are your biggest worries here. Having a clear set of transparent measures regarding every facet of its business practices is what makes professional ad networks stand out from wannabes and, ultimately, what makes people hang around and invest in the service.
Finally, having the full support and personal guidance readily available is a huge plus, as that will provide you with a tailored monetization solution that best reflects your site, as well as much-needed assistance to manage and optimize performance and maximize revenue.
Companies will spend increasingly more on digital advertising, giving publishers everywhere huge opportunities [Image Credit: eMarketer]
The second option for a quick way to advertise on your site is to offer the ad space directly to the advertisers. Why is this a viable option? Well, for starters, you get to keep all of the revenue to yourself. Because you are the top dog, the big cheese, the head honcho, you get to decide how much you should charge, ultimately setting higher ad rates than going through ad networks. Neat, right? Next, you’ll have complete control over the ads that appear on your site, allowing you more flexibility in terms of ad types and formats.
The good thing about this MO is that it eliminates the quality issue and certain limitations often found with alternative ad networks. Plus, you get to build a working relationship with your advertisers, which can be highly beneficial in the long run. The flaw in this plan is that it’s a demanding process and a lot of rides on you. First, you have to be successful in initiating cold contacts with advertisers firsthand. One alternative option is to leave a link through which they can contact you for rates and conditions. That way, any visitor can freely discuss advertising opportunities with you. Still, this entails relatively high traffic numbers to meet advertisers’ demands and necessary resources to see it through. If all goes well, you still need a decent ad management solution to attend to your ad inventory and help your revenue reach new heights. Lastly, you need to find that sweet spot between the overall amount of ads and the volume of content, as skimming on either of these means one of two things: less revenue or fewer visitors.
Monetizing your site is not just about placing a few ads here and there and collecting a paycheck. No, sir! (Or ma’m). It takes a lot of research and testing on an already established site to make even the best internet advertising strategies truly pay off. Having insight into what makes your website go is key to understanding what the best options for you are. Just as those looking to purchase a website utilize visitor recording to get a clear picture of what they’re getting into, so should you know your site inside and out. Failing to do so could cost you customers and revenue, and nobody wants that.
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