How Much Would It Cost You to Advertise on Blogs?

Advertising costs money, even online where the cost of promoting a brand can set you back by a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. 

John Chow's blog, for example, one of the most popular blogs currently active, sells 125 x 125 sidebar ad spots at $500 a month. The same ad placement will cost around $1,500 with Copyblogger. If you're wondering how much it would cost you to advertise on blogs, consider the following:

Traffic and popularity Blogs thrive on the number of traffic that visits their sites and on the subsequent popularity this generates. This is also a major consideration for advertisers. More traffic simply means better exposure. 

Targeted traffic means you'll be selling to more people who are likely to buy. Between a blog that has only 50,000 page views and another that has 100,000, who would you choose? The latter obviously offers a wider market and more potential buyers

Read also : How Setting Your Own Blog Advertising Rates

The mille matters. Traffic or the number of page views a blog page receives also determines the cost of advertising on a particular blog. If a blog generates about 100,000 page views monthly, for example and it's fairly new, you might have to pay as little as $50 a month for a 125 x 125 sidebar ad.

To understand how the price of ad spots is computed, consider the mille. Bloggers will generally use the unit cost-per-mille or CPM. One mille is equivalent to 1,000, a unit you will be able to use later to computer for the cost of placing an ad based on the number of page views it generates.

Bloggers will consider the number of page views their blogs receive and use that as a basis for coming up with the cost of advertising. As a result, a blog with a higher amount of traffic will charge you a higher price than a blog with a lower number. That means placing your ad on blogs with sufficient traffic can range in cost from about $50 to a whopping $10,000 a month. The bigger number, of course, means your ad will receive millions of page views.

In conclusion, remember that to determine whether a particular ad space is worth paying for, consider the cost of the space versus the traffic it will receive.

Read also : Blogging Traffic - Give And Take

Size of the ad The bigger the ad spot you require, the higher the cost of advertising on a blog. A 125 x 125 ad spot, for example, will be cheaper than a larger 300 x 250 ad. Placement will also affect the ad price.

Header ads, for example, will cost more than sidebar ads or footer ads. Below the fold ads will cost considerably less than those that will appear above the fold or integrated with the blog's content.

Test periods You might want to consider saving a few bucks by asking the blog owner if he/she is offering a test period of ad runs. If your ad will be placed on test period, that means the blog will display it for a limited time but won't charge you for it.

After a specific period, you can then decide whether to continue with the placement (at which point you'll have to start paying) or to pull your ad, depending on how well it performed in the blog. This usually works on blogs that are relatively new and are still building momentum.

Look for blogs that offer renewable ad placements you can pay for on a month-to-month basis. This will help you manage the cost of advertising on blogs and help your bottomline in the process.

Blog Advertising: How Do You Know If You've Done Too Much and Gone Too Far?

 

Advertising is good. It offers information, gives you access to a product or service you otherwise won't know about, it earns people money and fuels several different industries. But you know how anything excessive breeds discontent and greed and neither one is pretty. The wrong use of advertising on your blog could send your traffic south - not exactly the direction you want it to take. 

So when is blog advertising bad and when is it just right?

Is your blog succeeding? The key indicator that you're probably doing something right with your blog advertising is when you're actually succeeding. You get the traffic you want, you earn for a few simple efforts you made and keep your advertisers happy.

But don't get carried away by your success. You might think that placing many ads on your blog can help you earn exponentially. What it will do is earn you a spot on your advertiser's black list. Advertisers have guidelines about how many ads you can place on one web page. Generally, this can range from 3 to 5, depending on the sponsor.

If you don't want to break the good will that exists between you and your affiliate or advertising program, learn what the policies are and respect them.

Is that a blog or a splog? One of the worst labels your blog can be slapped with is 'splog'. That's a blog that contains spam. If your blog is nothing more than just pages upon pages of advertising and little content, you'd probably be better off publishing a fashion magazine.

Too many ads on a blog can bury your content, distract your visitors and even frustrate them. Some, such as the very wary ones, will leave your blog in a hurry. If your blog resembles an infomercial, forget it. It will look annoying and take away from the good reputation you're trying to build.

Too many choices Another challenge you will be facing when it comes to blog advertising is persuading your visitors to pay attention to the ads long enough to actually do something with them. Otherwise, these ads will be useless.

The problem with a blog that has too many advertising units is that it can confuse the visitor. When they're confused, they're less likely to click on an ad, much less subscribe or buy anything. 

That leaves your advertisers - and you - empty-handed. Managing your advertising A blog page can easily handle an average of three ads, which is something most advertising and affiliate programs will allow. Placed strategically, these ads can easily catch the attention of your visitors. Since there are only a few ads to look at, your visitors can easily decide which one to click on.

Now imagine if there were 10 to 15 ads running on the same page at the same time. You've probably seen blogs like these before, with ads splattered all over, rivaling a NASCAR race car.

To use blog advertising correctly, first consider the type of programs you will be running. If you will be an affiliate to a brand or company, there are certain restrictions you have to work with. 

Some companies, for example, prefer not to have a competing brand's a placed in the same blog. Second, placement and aesthetics matter. Consider some of the highest-rated blogs and study their ad placements. 

Where are these ads placed on a page, what are their sizes relative to one another and to the content box and what do these ads contain? If you've seen enough of these successful blogs, you'll have picked up enough lessons to know how to use blog advertising to your advantage.