Blog Advertising

Why should someone monetize his or her blog? The best answer will probably be: why not? Making money from your blog is not illegal or impossible. Not only can a blogger earn some cash through their effort, this is also a reward to the blogger. With those extra cash, it can also provide extra income stream for you to live a better life. To make money from blog, blog advertising would probably the way to go. However, not all advertising methods will provide equal result to your blog. The result depends highly on your choice of blog advertising method and the content of your blog.


Therefore, learning about how to choose the best blog advertising strategy will both promote your blog and maximize your potential of earning.






3 Blog Advertising Categories:


Here are 3 types of blog advertising categories you can choose from:


Pay-per-click/PPC: Advertising using PPC is probably the most basic form of blog advertising a blogger can use. Here is how it works: you put a PPC ad to your blog and, the advertiser will pay you every time a visitor clicks on their ad. As a blogger, the amount you receive on each click is different. It is depended on what kind of ad it is, the keyword value and who your advertiser is.

Pay-per-action/PPA: advertisers sometimes prefer PPA, as blogger will only get paid when their visitors perform certain actions. For example, a visitor needs to subscribe advertiser's newsletter, sign up for a membership site or response to a survey.


Pay-per-View/PPV: Blogger will get paid for each time an ad is shown on your blog and view by visitors. Doing PPV required some strategies to target the right audiences. But if you do it right, you can make a lot of money by implementing PPV.


How to choose the best web blog advertising method?


The three types of blog advertising method talked above can work with different types of ads. They include:

Contextual ads: The content of contextual ads that will be shown is based on what your blog content is all about. Therefore, the key to success in contextual ads is relevance. In other words, if your blog is talking about wedding and marriage, you will not expect to see any ad that is talking about automobile. If you decided to use contextual ads as your blog monetizing strategy, it is important that your blog should focus on specific topic and be updated frequently. A blog that focused on specific topic will drive targeted traffic, and show relevant ads.


Text link ads: Compare to contextual ads, text link ads will often be shorter then that of contextual ads in terms of text length. But text link ads are working the same way as contextual ads. Text link ad is shown based on the content of that page. If your blog content varies from page to page, it may be better to choose text link ads.


Affiliate ads: Unlike text link ads and contextual ads, affiliate ads provided bigger monetary return. Here is how it works: you are going to join a company's affiliate program and, when they accept your registration, you will use their promotion materials, like banners, and post it on your blog.


Therefore, if your blog is talking about topics that related to certain products or services, affiliate ads will provide great return to you. For example, if your blog is about health and fitness, you can place a link that promotes some health food program or eBook on diet. Visitors who see your content may be also interested in those products.






Direct ads


Direct ads work in a way that, blogger will work with advertisers directly and independently. Advertisers will go to find blogs that are both related to their products and services. Then they will contact to those bloggers directly, discussing about possible cooperation on promoting their product or service. At the same time, bloggers can also find advertisers and tell them that there are ads spaces available for advertising. To success in using direct ads, blogger should have a high traffic blog and strong niche market. Pricing and payment method are based on the agreements that blogger and advertiser negotiated.

Related articles

• Blogging And Money (accidentallybobfindlay.blogspot.com)
• What is Ad Copy (onefinefox.wordpress.com)
• A Dozen Tips for New Bloggers (onecoolsitebloggingtips.com)
• Make Money with Text Link Ads (joelcomm.com)
• Bloggers and brands: who is responsible for ROI? (mumbrella.com.au)

Outside The Square

No sooner had I finished my last blog and saying (truthfully) that I was unsure when my next literary work would be kicked into action, than I was woken by a multitude of ideas. So specific were they that I was 'forced' out of bed to write them down for fear of waking up in my customary (pretty) vacant state.

Having initially published "Online Music Traps" on Lulu as both an ebook and paperback, I was enthralled not only by the whole process but by the simplicity of it and the added creative scope that it provides.

I've been receiving quite a few emails of late from various music sites, offering this and that; some are at a cost, some are purely advice. The emails have one thing in common. Promotion.

Merchandising seems to be working it's way 'down' from the big name acts to the smaller players with 'pay-on-delivery' making it possible to have custom designed clothing item ready for fans to purchase with no up-front cost to the musician. This sort of promotion has been around for some time but musicians are now being patronised by some companies who are allegedly providing 'innovative' promotional tips, such as designing a different item for a different venue, city or event. (!)

The other factor that I have noticed is that it is now possible to create pay-on-delivery CDs. Admittedly there has been a marginal swing back towards physical CDs in the last 12 months but is just that. Marginal. The concept of re-issuing old albums, possibly with a 'bonus track' or new cover design has been launched at us as if it's some great trade secret. As the late Ian Dury once said, "I'm not too old to mind being patronised."


It never ceases to amaze how many (most) musicians don't dive head-first into these opportunities. Don't worry about the patronising waffle from the assortment of sites and companies. I have no doubt that you have better ideas and more ideas. I guess I should be a little more forgiving on the powers that be. They are, after all, providing opportunities that many of us would otherwise have gone without. Additionally, they have to generalise when talking about changing graphics on t-shirts for particular cities, etc. It is a good idea....but that's all. Not exactly 'nose-bleed' stuff.

As a musician who isn't 'doing the rounds,' I don't place a great deal of emphasis on merchandise. Pretty-well next to none, actually. I created a couple of very basic designs and haven't had anything to to with them since except, "Thank you very much for buying them." If someone emails with a specific request then I'll do it if it's possible.

With regards to CDs, actively touring/performing bands have got the upper hand on the 'stay-at-home' musician. They can sell countless numbers at gigs if they get the price right. One very handy piece of advice on this matter that I would like to share is; irrespective of town/city size, venue size or anticipated crowd size, keep your CD prices consistent. Word does travel, especially when money's involved.

I guess what I'm trying to get across....without sounding patronising myself....is that us small-time independent musicians could do better for ourselves by thinking outside the square.

I didn't sit down to write "Online Music Traps" as a promotional venture. Far from  it. I wrote it because I firmly believe that many independent artists are being misled. This is happening to us irrespective of time in the industry or genre' of music. As is the case with my music, I wouldn't have published the book had I not believed in it 100%.

After publishing the book, I noticed that my followers increased by over one hundred in 48 hours....to the dizzying heights of around 650 (!). This backed my advice in "Online Music Traps" that diversity plays a major role with regard to Twitter in particular, even though I'm not a huge fan of it.

As one does with any new 'creation,' I shared the news of my recent entry into the world of 'author-dom' to all the usual sites. I immediately upgraded my Google alerts to include the book in order to see what the reaction was/is. One word. Overwhelming! I currently await with baited breath to see what happens when the search engines really get their teeth into it.

Writing a book is but another way of promoting oneself. It doesn't even have to be a book as such. A how-to guide or a brochure. Anything that is related to what you are doing musically. Perhaps a guide to your town or city. It's related to your music because you record/perform it there. You would be amazed at the amount of people who have more than a passing interest in geography, particularly if there is a 'musical' link to it.

Be it book, articles, blogs, etc. if you keep your content close to where you're at then people are more inclined to stay a little longer and hopefully want to hear more about your thoughts, methods, influences and so forth. You will be amazed at what you can pour out as soon as you rid yourself of the 'search-engine-friendly' side of it. To me that's the biggest killer of emotional freedom & freedom of expression online....hence I totally ignore it. Sure my blogs could rate higher, but you're not going to get the essence of Bob Findlay in there.

Writing is only one idea. I'm sure that there are more. For the time being, I'll be sticking to recording and writing. I'm actually two-thirds through my next album and have three writing projects up and running at the moment, all in various stages of completion and one of which I do know will throw you a curve when I publish it. It defines 'outside the square.' Until next time, happy wondering.