How to maximize blog ad revenue?\u00a0We\u2019ve all read articles telling us that we can make millions from our blogs if we just buy product x or subscribe to service y. What these articles never tell you is that none of this stuff works, that you\u2019re not going to get rich quick with your blog. It takes time, patience and hard work to raise your site\u2019s revenue to a level where you might – just might – consider quitting your day job.<\/p>\n
Now that I\u2019ve got your attention (and hopefully you haven\u2019t left this article already in despair), I can tell you from personal experience that blogs can and do make money, just not overnight and not in the millions of dollars as some folks promise.<\/p>\n
With a strong amount of patience and smart decision making, anyone can begin to make money with their blog and raise their site\u2019s income to a reasonable level over time. Here are 5 effective ways to maximize revenue on your blog that I\u2019ve found have worked for me.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to placing ads on their site is thinking, \u201cIf I have more ads on my site I\u2019ll make more money.\u201d While the math in this statement seems to make sense, the psychology doesn\u2019t always work out this way. Often having one ad, directly related to the content on your site, can get more clicks than twenty \u201cgeneralized\u201d ads on the same site.<\/p>\n
Think about your ads from the perspective of a reader. When you land on someone\u2019s blog, or even a commercial site, don\u2019t you hate it when there are more ads on the screen than content? I know I do. Also, if you\u2019re reading an article about guitars, would you really be enticed to click an ad about laundry detergent that was sitting next to the article?<\/p>\n
Because of this, it\u2019s always better and more lucrative to have fewer ads that are directly targeted at your readers than a bunch of generic ads cluttering your site. If people find their eyes wandering from your article to the sidebar, you want them to see a relative ad that will compel them to click on it.<\/p>\n
Text links are another great way to advertise on your site. Here\u2019s a little experiment you can try right now. As you\u2019re reading this article, do you even notice that there are ads on the sidebar and in other places across this very website? Most of you will answer no, because your attention is focused on the article and not the periphery.<\/p>\n
With this knowledge in hand, you can now place ads directly where your readers are looking, in the text of each article you publish.<\/p>\n
There are many ways to do this, but what I find works well is to use an affiliate site, such as Amazon, and link to product pages directly from the text of your posts. So, if you use the following sentence in an article you could attach a link to the word \u201cLost\u201d and have it send your readers to the DVD\u2019s of the latest season of that show on Amazon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved the season finale of Lost last night. It was truly captivating television.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n There are many ways to link to affiliate programs within the text of an article, such as linking from pictures of products, names of products or descriptions of products. Try a bunch of different ways at first, see which links your readers are clicking through, and then figure out which approaches work best for your site.<\/p>\n A call to action is when you ask your readers to perform a specific action within the context of an article or post. A good example of this can be used with the Lost DVD\u2019s from the previous example. If you\u2019re writing an article about a certain subject or product, say Season 1 of Lost, you can insert a call to action inside the text of that article like so:<\/p>\n \u201cClick to buy Season 1 of Lost from Amazon.com\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n You would be surprised how many more clicks you\u2019ll get just by asking your readers to click on a particular link in an article. I\u2019ve also found that by bolding a call to action and using a bright color, like red, helps it to stand out from the rest of the article and draws more clicks than just using plain text.<\/p>\n Reviewing products is not only a great way to advertise on your blog, but it also helps build your reputation and a level of trust between you and your readers. I\u2019ve found that my most successful in-article ads come from products that I\u2019ve reviewed.<\/p>\n By reviewing a product, if it\u2019s a positive review of course, you\u2019re not only asking your readers to click through on a product link, you\u2019re also telling them why you liked said product and how it will positively affect their lives.<\/p>\n Writing reviews can also be a slippery slope, especially if you write a positive review and ask your readers to buy a product that turns out to be a scam, doesn\u2019t work or causes any hardships for your readers. There\u2019s no easier way to lose a readers than by telling them how great something is when it\u2019s really not. If you lose your reader\u2019s trust this way, you\u2019ll lose them forever.<\/p>\n Avoid the pitfalls of only writing positive reviews to sell a product. Write a positive review because you truly like something and believe that it will be enjoyed by your readers.<\/p>\n While most people who are in the early stages of their blogs might want to focus on the four ad strategies mentioned above, if you\u2019re getting 500+ unique visitors per day you\u2019re probably in a position where you can approach companies directly to buy advertising space on your site\u2019s header, footer or sidebar.<\/p>\n The best way to go about doing this is to approach companies that sell products that are related to the content on your site. For example, if you write about flower arrangements, then flower delivery services would be your best bet as companies to start selling ad space to.<\/p>\n Though don\u2019t be afraid to think outside of the box. That same website could also sell ads to wedding planners, greeting card companies, gift basket services etc., basically any company that deals with flowers and flower arrangements.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve tried some of these ideas out yourself, or have come up with your own successful ad technique, let us know about your experiences by commenting below. (See how I snuck a call to action in there?)<\/p>\n Guest author Dr. Matt Warnock is the Editor in Chief of GuitarInternational.com, a digital magazine that provides readers with well written and entertaining reviews, lessons and interviews with guitarists from around the globe. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How to maximize blog ad revenue?\u00a0We\u2019ve all read articles telling us that we can make millions from our blogs if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[44,52,49],"class_list":["post-15130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","tag-guest-posts","tag-popular","tag-tutorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}3. Calls to Action<\/h2>\n
4. Reviews<\/h2>\n
5. Direct Ad Sales<\/h2>\n
What Do You Think?<\/h2>\n