Jeffrey Munro

If you want to monetize your blog then placing advertisements on your blog is one of the best places to start and will yield decent returns depending on the amount of traffic your website receives. Now in saying this I should correct myself and say that it isn’t really the amount of traffic that you receive but rather the quality of the traffic you receive that is important. To put this into context imagine receiving 10,000 hits and none of the visitors click on the ads and then the next day you only receive 100 hits but each visitor clicks on the advertisement. Which day do you think will generate more revenue? I’m sure you have already figured it out that 100 clicks are worth much more than 10,000 page views. Now that you know that clicks are more important than page views you can choose which types of ads you plan on placing on your site that will create the most exposure without taking away from the viewing experience of the visitor (text, banner etc…).

There are many blogs out in the blogosphere attempt that trick users into clicking on their text ads by integrating them into their blog so that it becomes part of the content. This is often considering against the Terms of Use of many advertising publishers and will often lead to your account being banned. Also you must consider the affect this will have on the visitors to your website. If you visit a site and are tricked into clicking advertisements that you have no intent on checking out, your view on the website will automatically be lowered and the chance of returning to this website will be greatly lower. If visitors want to click on the ads then they will, they don’t need to be forced or tricked into it. Now in saying this, it is important to place ads in a location on your site that easily viewable but not distracting. At the top of posts, on the side bar and at the end of posts are popular locations to place your ads depending on the type (banner, text). I would recommend refraining from placing text ads within your posts as once again it will make the visitor believe it is part of the post and trick them into clicking it. It is also very distracting whenever you are browsing through.

Now that you have a general idea of where you are going to place your ads and which type of ads you are going to place there you need to choose an advertisement service. There are many different companies on the net that offer these types of services and there are also some that target mainly bloggers. The blogger based advertisement services often have high payouts but generally need a high traffic blog for them to approve you, which will probably not include you if you are new to blogging. The most popular online advertising service comes from the wonderful Google in the form of Adsense. After you have signed up for Adsense they will need to confirm your website. This sometimes takes hours but generally 1-3 business days should do the trick. Adsense allows for a wide variety of different ads to be displayed on your website so customizing the size parameters and color to match your site is a must. Here on Jeffreymunro.com I use Adbrite, based out of California, for all my website advertising. From my personal experiences I have nothing but good things to say about Adbrite and because they are not nearly as big as Adsense, the reply times for questions and concern are often under 24 hours. Adbrite does not have as much customization as Adsense but for the majority of users it will be more than enough to suit your needs. There are other services out there but these two of my favorite thus I have a bias I suppose but considering their track records you should not have any problems getting setup and displaying ads on your site.

We have chosen our ad location and selected an advertising service to display the ads. What’s the next step you ask? Well I would like to say just sit back and watch the hundreds of dollars roll in but if it was that easy everyone would be doing it. It is at this point that the real work begins. Update your blog often (daily, multiple times a week, weekly), tweak your ad placement to see which placement and ad type is the most effective, and finally write content that you enjoy writing, not just because you want to make some cash. People who get into blogging to make money rarely succeed as there is no sense of passion in their writing. Write about something you love, for me that blogging, and over time you will succeed! Also remember that bloggers are not made over night. It takes months for blogs to build in popularity so do not get discouraged if you do not see results within the first couple of weeks, they shouldn’t be expected. With enough time and dedication you will be on your way to becoming the next dot com mogul!!

The Links

Adsense - Here

Adbrite - Here