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Knowledge Base Territory
Online advertising is the practice of charging individuals, companies and
organisations a fee to promote their products or services on your website.
Advertising is often the first revenue stream that publishers add to their site so
I will run through the many options that fall within this category.
Display Ads were the first type of online advertising, the equivalent of the big
ads in magazines. They come in various forms
• Banner Ads – Banner ads were the first ads to really get established
on the Internet. They were rectangular graphical ads that tended to be
displayed at the top of web pages.
• Banner Ad Derivatives – Following on from the standard banner ad, a
whole host of new shaped ads have emerged including vertical
‘skyscrapers’, big squares and half banners.
• Button Ads - Button ads are a spin-off from banner ads. They are
smaller square ads (125mm x 125mm). I mention them separately
because they have become very popular on blogs, usually appearing in
clusters of six or eight ads in the right hand column. Research has
shown they are clicked on ten to twenty times more often than standard
banners (which sounds a lot but is still less than 1% of site visitors).
• Pop-Under and Pop-Over Ads – These ads open a new browser
window, which either appears on top of the page you’re looking at –
pop-over – or underneath the page you opened so it’s there when you
close your browser – pop-under. These types of ads really irritate
users and are often blocked by the browser settings. Avoid them.
Text Ads
Much more popular than Display Ads are Text Ads. These are what they say;
ads that are just text – no images. Part of the ad is a link which can be
clicked to go through to the advertiserʼs site. These might sound rather
inferior to display ads. But they are not. The dominant company in this space
is Google:
• Google Adsense – Every publisher should at least try Adsense to
understand how it works. You might decide it’s not for you because it
undervalues your content, but try it anyway.
You could also try:
• In-Text Ads – In-text ads are keywords within articles that are links.
The link is usually underlined with two lines so people know it is an ad,
not a hyperlink. To see what I mean have a look at www.InLinks.com .
This format has been slow to take off.
Multimedia Advertising is a new format, which a great potential to
revolutionise online advertising (again) – though it could, of course, fail
miserably. The jury is out about which way it will go.
Today many sites are experimenting with:
• Video Ads - These are short video ads embedded into a page. They
can be auto-play, which means they automatically start when you call
up a page (annoying!) or be click-to-play, which does at is says.
• Pre-Roll/Post-Roll Video Ads - These are short ads that appear at the
beginning and end of video clips. If you have lots of video content, you
could consider them.
• Podcast Ads - Every niche publisher should think about doing
podcasts, even if it is just recording interviews. If you do a regular
show and build a strong audience advertisers will want to be included.
Directories
The Internet is the perfect place for creating directories of information. They
can be updated daily; be easily searched and re-ordered; have no size
restrictions; be protected or public; link to other resources, sites or
attachments; and cover local, national or global subjects. They can be
directories of suppliers, places, data or reviews.
If you can think of a directory that you can create for your niche, the proven
way to make it a great income stream is to first make it as comprehensive as
possible, but keep the listings fairly basic. It needs to be a valuable resource
to your audience so they keep returning to use it. You can then contact all the
companies or people in the directory and ask them if they want to pay for an
enhanced listing. This could include adding photos, special offers, features
and benefits, testimonials, links, etc.
Classifieds
Sites like Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) and eBay (www.ebay.com) dominate
the online classifieds market. However there is a trend towards niche sites
creating their own niche marketplaces where their readers can promote their
products and services to each other. You can use a forum or a simple
directory to start posting classifieds.
Jobs Board
Listing jobs is a type of classified ad, but it deserves a special mention. For business sites in a niche sector charging companies to list their job vacancies
can be very profitable. Consider listing jobs for free to get started. For a good
example have a look at the job section on Smashing Magazine
(www.SmashingMagazine.com).
Advertorial
• Advertorial – Classic advertorial is an article written by a company,
which includes promotion of their products or service. They pay to
have them published on a website or in a print publication. Advertorial
should be clearly marked ‘advertorial’.
• Paid Reviews – A website owner charges a company or individual to
review their book, product or service. This technique is popular
amongst bloggers. It is quite difficult to remain independent, but it is
important that you do so. You can learn more at Review Me
(www.ReviewMe.com)
• Pay Per Post – Publishers offer to write a post or article mentioning a
product, company or service in exchange for a fee. This format has got
a bad reputation, because bloggers have not always been upfront
about what they get paid for. Whilst this is not illegal, I think it is
dishonest – and a breach of trust. Learn more at Pay Per Post
(www.PayPerPost.com)
• Product Placement – is paying to have your products featured on a
website, video or in a podcast. Product placement has been very
popular in Hollywood. The Aston Martin in the last James Bond Film
was product placement. The use of Apple computers in ‘24’ was
product placement. This is new in the online world. At the moment it
tends to be limited to bloggers being given services free in exchange
for letting their customers know they are using them.
Sponsorship
Allowing companies to sponsor all or part of a website is becoming more
popular. As display advertising loses its impact, many companies are offering
sponsorship deals so their brand becomes associated with supporting a niche
market.
Other routes
The above are the formats that are becoming established, but you shouldn’t
let them restrict your thinking. Be creative. For example:
• The website Todays Big Thing (www.todaysbigthing.com) makes the
whole background of their website a clickable ad. Take a look at the site to see what I mean.
• eConsultancy (www.econsultancy.com) holds big networking events in
London which are sponsored by local web companies.
• Jason Calcanis, an Internet entrepreneur, has charged companies upto
$10k to mention them to his 80k Twitter followers.
Posted in: Making money