Finding Your First Advertisers For Your Blog

By: Michael Dunlop     Topics: Blog,Making Money Online

Hello Everyone,

Firstly, Happy Valentines Day Everyone 😉 I hope you monetize your website for this special day.

A couple days ago I wrote a blog post about how I keep increasing my website revenue, Chris commented the post and asked me where to find new advertisers and Charlie asked me how can I monetize my first blog and so today I would like to do answer these questions and let you know how I did it. Typically your advertisers will find you but then you have to convince them once they are on your website to sign up and start advertising. Hopeful these helpful techniques will help you get on your way to making bags of money!

Finding Advertisers And Making Sure They Advertise

You may well be doing most of these techniques but ask yourself, are you doing them well?

– Forums and Marketplaces

This is by far the easiest option to finding new advertisers, I often go to forums such as SitePoint and DigitalPoint if I am in need of advertisers. In fact one evening I went out for a meal and I came home to check my emails, to my surprise I had sold 4 out of the 6 advertising spots I had on my website!

If you would like to create a list on the Sitepoint forums it will cost $10 for 30 days, if you want to create a post to sell your advertising on DigitalPoint then you will need 25 forum posts.

– Let Your Readers Know Your Looking

Make it clear that you are looking for advertisers, I go to a lot of website’s which I would love to advertise on, I know for a fact they want advertisers, I just can’t find any details about becoming one. It is important that you keep your website IDIET proof, put your advertising link at the top of the page where they expect to see it.

It is also important to let you advertisers know what they will be getting, make sure to put a advertising package together which will show them what to expect, include screen shots of traffic, demographics and big mentions you have on the web. For example I tell my readers I have been mentioned in Yahoo News, AOL and PC World.

– Find A Middle Man

Finding advertisers can be a long and hard job at times, if you use a middle man service then they will actively seek out your advertiser for a fraction of the price. If you are looking to for a middle man service then I recommend BuySellAds and Link Worth. For those who already have a PageRank and not afraid to sell Do Follow links then Text-Link-Ads is great because advertisers buy your text adverts at a premium, not for traffic but for the SEO purposes.

– Making the Most Out of Your Potential Advertisers

Its not all about just finding the advertiser, once you have them their you need to make sure you offer them what they need. Like I said in my last post, its important to think “Why would they not advertise on my website” and make sure you do something about that. For example, do they have the right size advertising banner, can they understand your advertising page and did you ask them what they wanted?

If you are looking for inspiration on how to lay out your advertising page then you should definitely check out mine, I often hear from people saying “Wow, that’s by far the best advertising page I have seen”.

I have uploaded the PSD for my advertising page so you can use it for your website, click here to download it.

– Approaching Potential Advertisers

When I first started looking for advertisers I went to my biggest competition and saw who was advertising on their website and then emailed them asking if they are interested in advertising with you, I find that its important to give them a reason or angel to why they should be advertising with you, for me its “Sponsoring The Top Young Entrepreneurs Website”. When emailing potential advertisers it is important that you clearly think out your email,

– Set The Right Price

I often notice that only 2 out of 8 advertising spots are sold out on a lot of my competitors website’s, its great for the advertiser because they get more clicks but the if they would of sold all 8, the advertiser wouldn’t be so happy because his clicks would have dropped to just a fraction of what he was already getting. When starting to monetize a new website it is important to set your price lower then you think you deserve for the spot and then over deliver. This way you keep your advertiser happy and they will continue to advertise on your website.

It is also important to note that if you show your readers and potenial advertisers that you have a lot of unwanted advertising spots then it will also devalue your advertising spots. I would recommend you start with 2, then 4 and keep increasing as you find new advertisers.

– Ask For Testimonails

Testimonials are a great way to encourage potential advertisers to start advertising with you. If you set your price low like I said in the above post and then over deliver then I am sure you will get some great tesimonials. Make sure to link to their website in the testimonail and include a picture of them, if you make it personal then it reinforces to them that its a real testimonial and not something you made up.

– Advertising Software

A lot of advertisers appricate that you offer advertising statistics and with services such as Ad Peeps and OIO Publisher you can do that. A side from that, you are able to easily manage and add, edit and delete advertisers.

Monetizing Your First Blog or Website

When you start a new website you are always going to struggle to make money straight away because you have little to no back links and very minor traffic. Here is a couple techniques I use on new website’s:

– Affiliate Products

I am a huge fan of affiliate programs right now because in most cases it pays a lot better than a advertiser would. For those of your who aren’t completely clear what a affiliate program is, it is where you sell a product on behalf of someone and receive a commission for doing so. What is great about this technique is you can choose exactly what to promote, you know exactly what your reader wants and so you can give it to them. For example If I had a Football website, I could promote a Nike Football of Amazon, I would get a lot more clicks for this over any advertiser because typically advertisers are just “related” they aren’t exactly targeted. If you are looking to start promoting affiliate programs then I suggest you start with Amazon Associates, Commission Junction and ClickBank.

– PPC Advertising

Although for years I thought you had to be 18, in fact after speaking to another young entrepreneur he told me all I need is bank account and I can sign up and then you can start using services such as Google Adsense and Netkilix.

To Our Success,

Michael Dunlop

PS. How are you finding new advertisers?