The first paragraph of this article provides a brief overview of the topic. If you own a website and have successfully built a steady stream of traffic, you might be considering the next step: attracting advertisers. This article will guide you through the process of attracting advertisers who will pay to display their banners or text links on your website or in your newsletter, if you have one.
The first step in attracting advertisers is to understand your audience. Gathering demographic data about your site's visitors is crucial for potential advertisers and can help you target the right ones.
There are two simple ways to collect this data:
Services like Listbot allow you to ask demographic questions during the subscription process. Alternatively, you can simply poll your visitors. However, avoid asking for too much information as this can deter people from participating. Focus on collecting basic information such as:
This information will give potential advertisers a good sense of who visits your site.
Potential advertisers will also want to know how many unique visitors your site attracts. Many hosting companies provide site statistics as part of your monthly fee or for an additional charge. If they don't, you can use external sources like SuperStats, which offer various packages depending on what stats you want to track and your budget. At the very least, you should know your monthly unique visitor count for each page of your website.
Next, you need to decide what to charge for advertising on your website. Consider offering three advertising options:
These can apply to both banners and text link advertisements. Prime ads are large and appear at or near the top of each page. Standard ads are smaller and usually appear in the middle of your page or in a side column. Basic ads are simple text links or very small banners and are normally placed at or near the bottom of a page.
In setting your price, you can use a general rule of thumb: $ times the number of unique visitors for the length or term of the ad (ad run). For example, Prime ads: .007 cents, Standard: .006 cents, basic .005 cents.
Once you've collected all the necessary information, you need to present it to potential advertisers. Consider creating an Advertiser's Informational Packet, available in both online and offline versions. This packet should include:
Offer incentives or discounts to those who commit to advertising for several months or who take out more than one ad.
Finally, you need to find advertisers. Consider creating an 'Advertise With Us' page on your site and submitting it to major search engines. You can also look at your competitors' websites to see who's advertising with them and approach those companies with a better deal. Don't forget to consider offline businesses as well. There are also many advertising agencies that can help sell advertising on your site if you need assistance.
For an example of an 'Advertise With Us' page, see Tadd Group or Mystic Beagle.
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