Ads that attract users and keep them happy

Did you ever think about your users before putting an ad on your website? Okay while I know almost all of you will say yes in public.. I want you to think about it again in your heart did you really? Most people don’t otherwise sites with extreme ads won’t exist.

Most bloggers entering the industry think it is pretty darn easy to make money online. Well, so what do they do. Put Ads for sale on all forums. People see the post, specially poker, adult sites, warez. They take the offer up. Pay the blogger and their ads are up.

While I understand that money is a motivation that keeps a lot of bloggers going, you need to understand that these people are only paying you because you have high traffic and decent ranking. That is only because you have your loyal readers. So when you are selling ads on your website, you are not selling PR, or Traffic, but you are putting your readers’ trust on the cliff. Make one wrong move, and you are dead from both ends. If you put the wrong ad, your users will abandon your blogs, and once your traffic goes down. You should already know what happens, Your advertiser will pull out as well.

What if I tell you that you can avoid all this? Would you believe me? Well let me tell you. You need to learn how to evaluate your ads.

How to evaluate ads?

• Ads must be Family Friendly – Well I think it should be a rule of thumb that all blogger should follow unless you blog about adult content. I would certainly not appreciate if a webmaster blog is showing a naked lady asking to chat. Even if the advertiser is willing to pay me 1500 per month for that ad, I will still turn it down. Because I don’t want my readers which includes, parents, teenagers, teachers, students to see this type of content. What if your user is a parent, and their kids walk by. You don’t want that to happen. I want my readers to share my site and content with their friends, colleagues, and family. Mouth to Mouth advertising.
• Ads must be related to content – You should know this by now that your ads won’t convert if it is not related to your content. If you are trying to do some affiliate marketing using Market Leverage on your webmaster blog. I would not recommend you to put healthy samples ad on your website. Because it is not related to the content that you write about. Even though the offer converts well for others who run this separately, it won’t work well for you. Same thing with Casino, or Warez links. Usually these owners are willing to pay higher price than normal. Say if they over you $1500/month for a peel away ad on your website. Will you take it? I know, I certainly wouldn’t. But alot of people will jump on to take that offer. You want to know what happens if you do. Your stats before you take the offer, UV = 50,000 per month. After the ad, 5,000 per month. Most of your genuine readers will leave. So don’t make that mistake.

What can you do to fix the ads?

Usually you can’t really do anything about the private ads. Because the users only have one banner for their site, so you don’t have a whole heck of options. But if you are trying to do affiliate marketing, then look through your options. So if you want to run an offer for Bluehost, then look through all the blue host banners that they have to offer. Sometimes, default affiliate banners are too ugly. Ask your affiliate manager and see if you can get a better version of the banner. I sometimes create my own banner with my Affiliate Manager’s approval. The reason is simple. I don’t want to display ugly looking ads on my websites. So look of the ad also matters. Heck that is what determines whether the ad is quality or not. Because a crappy banner can have a really good site behind it, but your user don’t see the site. They see the banner. So fix the look of your ads.

If you are displaying ads from Shopping ads, like I used to. These ads are generated by their server. So one time, I noticed it was an advertisement of online TV packages, but next to the TV there was an almost nude girl laying. Now I couldn’t change those ads, so I ended up removing their entire ads from my website. You need to look for long term loss rather than short term profit. Because a new user won’t tolerate those sort of ads, so you might make some money from these ads in the beginning, but the growth of your site will suffer.

Same thing goes for Contextual links as well. Bloggers started doing it because sites like John Chow were doing it. But you need to understand that John is at the point, that his blog is too big for him to care. But smaller blogs, specially the blogs that just have like 100 readers, shouldn’t use this sort of ads. Because these ads are very annoying to begin with. Then some just slow down your site. These double negatives can seriously hurt you. So the few cents that you make right now. Avoiding those won’t hurt you but will help you in the long run.

Bottom line is remove the services that ruins the image of your site. Don’t go for short term profit, but look for long term loss.

Turning Down Ads

While I understand, it is very tough to see the money go from your hands. But you have to think about your readers as well. So Turning down ads are sometimes beneficial for your blog. But you need to turn them down in a polite manner.

How do you turn it down Politely?

1. First be in a very passive tone. Nothing agressive. Be friendly.
2. Explain to them Why their site was turned down.
3. Support your statement with the TOS of your website.
4. Give them an option/suggestion. Such as telling them what they can improve to be accepted.

Because your private advertiser is more likely to come back to you if you respond clearly and explain everything rather than just saying your ad is not approved. Or a rude statement like fix your ad, it is not family friendly. When answering the email, put yourself in the shoes of an advertiser and do as you would like to be done to yourself.

Keep Looking

Last advice I would give is keep your eyes open. That is the #1 rule for driving, and the #1 rule for online business. The web world is vast, so there are always new opportunities to find advertisers that are related to your website. Look for PPC / Affiliate programs who offer the most related ads toward your website, and try them. Trial and error is the only way you will find out what works best for you.