Three Hot Tips to Improve Your Ad Space Purchases
One of the biggest mistakes that web builders make to in fact detract from their construction is to seek and buy ad space on other pages unwisely. The desire to get the word out about your own site's excellent and wonder is a natural instinct; it's easy to believe that all publicity is worthwhile publicity. But consider a cartoon scenario. Literally, suppose that you're surfing a Web page that specializes in selling comics and television cartoon DVDs.
The philosophy of omnipresent publicity would translate into, say, a peanut butter blogger blitzing this cartoon page with advertisements linking to her site. Sure, a few animation aficionados will click to read more on her nutty spread posts. But on the whole, most people visiting this website about cartoons will be disinterested in the blogger's butter ramblings. Take this anecdote as proof that tailored ad purchases are key.
Use your smarts, and this page's tips, to spend more strategically. And reap the rewards of your pointed purchasing.
1. AdWords.
Google's most visible adverting program, Adwords functions as an intelligent and target way of directing traffic toward advertisements for your Web page. What you do here is bid on your ideal keyword phrases that you'd like to be associated with. Win your bid, and AdWords will display your ad when such a keyword is enacted on any given Google search.
It's an effective way to ensure that your advertising dollars are spent only on people that express an interest with what's going on with your web page. (Hint to those who've read our keyword article: invoke some of your brainstorm's more imaginative and attractivefor AdWords, and get brownie points in the form of a stream of visitors pointed to your page, in direct result of your keyword research.)
2. Introduce Yourself in (Virtual) Person.
If your head is truly engaged in the ad Web game, you've probably already determined a grouping of 10 to 15 websites on which your ads appear in your sweetest dreams. Make those reveries real by sending a well-worded and thoughtful e-mail or message to those sites, directly. Warning: Such an endeavor can definitely become a time-consuming ordeal if you do not research your target websites in advance. Many of your favorite sites, should they be larger, will request a relatively hefty price tag should you wish to apply your ads there. But overall, such an investment could ultimately prove worthwhile in the long run.
Do your homework in terms of figuring out the number of impressions you can expect from a given ad package; a minimum of around 75,000 is a good sign. And don't forget -- a sweet and tactful e-mail to a smaller site could potentially lead to you coming to an ad deal great for both parties.
3. (Not-So) Free Agents.
We recommend that you consider a small investment in a Web advertising agency, as a supplemental scheme in getting word out on your website to those interested. Do not get us wrong -- you can occasionally run into unscrupulous ad vendors online, should you not proceed with caution. But a thought-out plan in locating your ideal agent can potentially help your site scout out new visitors via the agency, while you continue to refine your web presence and ad strategies from home.
Smaller websites should be particularly careful when scoping out potential agents; the more experienced the agent, the better quality and representation of ad placement your fledgling site will receive.