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Tips for Making Money with Website Ads

Written by: suzanne rodriguez 589 views

Last week, over a business lunch, I listened with amazement as a website owner confided to me that—at certain times of the year—he clears about $15,000 per month from advertisements on his site. During “bad” months his ad income shrinks to an average $5,000. His website’s focus is tied to the up-and-down nature of business and leisure travel, accounting for the rise and fall of ad income. The site’s purpose is to provide a fee-based service, but the income from that service is separate from the ad figures I’ve noted here.

I’ve promised the owner to keep his name and site confidential. I can tell you this, though: in its niche this site is ranked No. 2 in popularity. Most months it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world. The site owner—let’s call him John—attracts visitors by offering thousands of pages of interesting, fun-to-read, fact-based content and related photographs. Pay attention to that fact: content is important to this site. “Good content matters,” John said more than once during our lunch. “The main reason my site attracts visitors is because it offers superb content.”

John’s site was no overnight success; it’s present prominence has been more a case of slow-and-steady wins the race. He began the site about 10 years ago. At the time he was scraping by financially. Propelled by what he thought was a great idea, he poured his time and hopes into his website. He’s not a writer, and knew he was doing only a so-so job with content; but at first—since he had no money—he did all the writing himself, decorating articles with his own content-related photography. When he began to turn a profit, he started contracting writing to professionals that he found through Craig’s List.

Possessed of a technical bent, John was optimizing for searches early on, deepening his knowledge of SEO as he went along. Ditto with advertising: he put ads on the site right at the beginning. As online ads have grown more sophisticated, so has his understanding of the ways in which he can utilize them to make money.

The bottom line here is that, at some point, John’s site began to earn real money.

And his site isn’t the only one doing so. Many other websites out there are earning big money from advertising and/or selling something. Through a close friend I know of one other site owner—a guy who first made a fortune in Silicon Valley and retired before he was 30—who brings in a minimum $6,000 per month from each of three sites he runs. If you look at the following chart, which includes all forms of online advertising from 2001 projected through 2011, you’ll see that more than $37 billion will be spent on Internet ads this year in the US alone! If you’ve a website you’re proud of, and that you’ve worked on, why not garner a share of that expenditure?

Learn more about this chart at eMarketer.

Interested? Me too! Here are some tips I’ve uncovered for making money from ads on your blog or website:

• A primary thing to keep in mind is that ads on your site should be relevant—otherwise they’ll irritate your visitors.

• Don’t stick with a single advertising service (see example services below). Find a few good ones that suit you and stick with them. If one doesn’t perform well, no problem! There are plenty of fish in that sea, so go catch yourself another ad service.

• Utilize text ads, which are probably the least irritating/most reader-friendly ads you can place on your site. Why? Because they are subtle, small, and consist only of text. They don’t blink and flash or try to attract attention with snazzy graphics. Here are a few of many services available that provide text ads for your site . In alphabetical order:
  • AdBriteInc: One of AdBrite’s benefits is that it allows you to approve and reject any ads that will appear on your site.
  • Adify: Offers editorial control, including setting your own prices.
  • BidVertiser.com: Customizable ads provided with an opportunity to block ads you don’t want to host.
  • eXelate Targeted Links: Pick and choose the advertisers you want on your site with this program.
  • Google AdSense: An obvious choice, and why not? Google ads are popular and often profitable and can be content-relevant.

• If you want bigger and bolder ads on your site, these services are a starting point. In alphabetical order:
  • Kontera ContentLink: Turn your relevant content keywords into a hyperlink ad.
  • LinkAdage Auctions: Offering a diffrerent approach, this service lets you sell text links on your site through online auctions.
  • LinkWorth LinkAds: Completely text-based ads with a great deal of user control. Claim to have the highest payouts.
  • PaidTextLinks.com: Lots of flexibility with PTL, and you maintain editorial control.
  • Text Link Ads: Simple, context-relevant text links here; claims a higher ratio of page real estate to revenue earned versus other ad services.
  • Tribal Fusion: Tribal Fusion says it allows publishers (that’s you) to “maximize the value of their highly-targeted content.”
  • ValueClick Inc.: Old hands at the ad biz, this company uses all standard display advertising and rich media formats.
  • Yahoo! Publisher Network: Display contextual ads related to your site’s content.

• If you’re providing readers with RSS feeds, then consider sending along RSS ads in the process. Probably best with feeds to keep the ads subtle and highly relevant. These services provide RSS ads:
  • CrispAds: Focussed on blogs, CrispAds lets you place ads directly into entries so they’ll appear both on your site and in feeds.
  • Feedvertising: A division of Text Link Ads (above), this service embeds ads in your RSS feed. This service is free!
  • Pheedo Inc.: Provides video options.

• And, of course, if your site is popular enough you can sell your own advertising for a price the market will tolerate. And when you sell your own ads, you get to control the look and feel. A few tips to turn you into a pro ad sales person:
  • Create Your Own Media Kit: This makes it oh-so-easy for an advertiser to buy space on your site. Make your kit attractive and downloadable. Your kit should include ad rates, ad policies, demographics, traffic, testimonials and contact information.
  • Give Away Ad Space: At first, anyway, to get the ad ball rolling. Ask companies in your field to place an ad on your site for a specific amount of time—for free. Other companies will get interested when they see those ads. And when the free ad time expires, try to make a sale to the formerly-free advertiser!
  • Choose Advertisers Selectively: Remember that the advertisers you choose reflect back on your site. Select advertisers that your readers will really want to know about. Solicit ads from solid companies or services.
  • Sell Actively: Let advertisers know you’re looking for them! Make sure you’ve got links on your site that let potential advertisers contact you directly.

See Part 2 of this series, 14 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog.

© Suzanne Rodriguez

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