Today, I want to educate you about how to advertise on your website and get paid. If you own a blog or website, why not make money with it? Once you’ve built up enough traffic (at least 300 to 500 visitors per day), you should consider monetizing your site. Up until that point, you should focus on building up your content and traffic.
While the idea of advertising sounds complicated at first, I’m going to walk you through a series of steps you should follow to find new clients and start generating advertising revenue.
Howto Advertise On Your Website and Get Paid
Here are my 9 steps to teach you how to advertise on your website and get paid. Enjoy the information.
Step # 1: Know Your Audience
The first and most critical step is to know your audience. Check out the demographics for your website, via Google Analytics. If possible, try to figure out the following things:
- What country they live in
- Their average age
- Their gender
- Their occupation
- Why they visit your website (check out the most popular pages)
- What types of things they are interested in buying?
You can also collect this information by doing a survey on your website. I like to call this market research. The more you know about your audience, the better, more targeted advertisers you can find for your website.
Step # 2: Evaluate Your Competitors
Once you know your audience, you can move to the next step. Step two is to evaluate your competitors. Search through the top 10 pages of Google (in your niche) to find your competitors. Check out what types of products and services they offer for sale on their website.
What affiliate programs do they promote? Do they use Google AdSense or something different? Do they sell advertising? If so, what options are available and what are their rates.
Also, check out the Alexa rank of each of your competitors so you can guesstimate how much traffic they are getting on a monthly basis. Obviously, a high traffic website can charge more for advertising than a smaller, less established website in the same niche.
Trying to do business without advertising is like winking at a pretty girl through a pair of green goggles. You may know what you are doing, but no one else does.
~ Cyrus McCormick
Step # 3: Decide What Type of Advertising You Want to Offer
Your next step to advertise on your website and get paid is to determine what type of advertising you want to offer. You have several options to include:
- Affiliate products
- Banner Ads
- Text Links
- Sponsored Ads
- Product Reviews
- Newsletter Advertising
- & More
It’s best to have several different options to offer your potential advertisers. At a minimum, offer banner ads and sponsored listings.
Step # 4: Determine Your Rates
How much should you ask for your advertising rates? As much as you can get! That being said, the best thing to do is look at what your competitors are charging for similar ads.
Also, if you currently have a banner ad on your website, and you track its metrics, and you generate $400 per month in sales from it, it makes no sense to sell advertising for that space for anything less than $400. Does that make sense?
What most people do is charge a rate based on every 1,000 impressions. It might be as low as 50 cents per 1,000 impressions all the way up to $5 or more per 1,000 impressions. There are lots of variables depending on your niche.
You might need to give your first few advertisers a price break, so they can try it out and see if they are getting a good deal. Also, if you are asking $100 for a banner ad spot, but no one is willing to pay more than $50 for it, you’re probably charging too much.
You might think your advertising space is worth “X” amount, but ultimately the free market dictates the value of it.
Step # 5: Determine Your Payment Options
This step is pretty simple. Most people use PayPal, but you can also accept Bitcoin or Bank Transfer.
Step # 6: Set Up Your Advertising Page
Your next step is to set up your advertising page on your website. It can say something like ADVERTISE HERE. On that page, you want to publish information about your website to include:
- Your niche
- When your website started
- Your monthly traffic
- The number of followers you have on social media
- Your advertising options
- Your advertising rates
- A list of products or services that might be a great fit for your niche
By posting this information on your advertising page, you can save yourself a lot of time talking with potential clients who wouldn’t be a good fit for your website.
Step # 7: Promote Your Advertising Service
Your next step is to promote your advertising service. Just creating an advertising page on your website is not enough. You also want to put a few banner ads and links in prominent pages on your website directing people to your ADVERTISING page.
In addition, be sure to email your list about your new advertising service, since some of your subscribers might be interested. Plus, you should consider promoting your advertising service through some type of pay per click ad.
Step # 8: Collect Reviews & Testimonials
As you start to receive advertising inquiries and accept ads, do your best to provide amazing customer service. Answer emails, questions and phone calls promptly.
Have each advertiser use a tracking link so they know how many visitors they are getting from their ad.
Be sure to screen out advertisers if they are offering something that is not a good fit for your website. Do your research about each advertiser to learn more about their reputation and background. The last thing you want to do is let someone advertise on your website with a horrible reputation for scamming people.
Finally, be sure to get testimonials from each of your advertisers. You can post these testimonials on your advertising page, which will help you get even more advertisers.
It only serves to show what sort of person a man must be who can’t even get testimonials. No, no; if a man brings references, it proves nothing; but if he can’t, it proves a great deal.
~ Joseph Pulitzer
Step # 9: Tweak & Scale as Needed
Your final step is to tweak and scale your progress as needed. Once you sell advertising for 12-months you will figure out what is working and what isn’t working. You can make adjustments as needed. For example, you might decide to increase your rates, offer different services, of eliminate your advertising program altogether.
The Million Dollar Question
Here is the million-dollar question as I see it. Should I sell advertising on my website, or not? While it might be tempting and sound sexy, sometimes you can make even more money just by selling your own affiliate products, information products or services. On the flip side of the coin, some bloggers choose to simply offer Google Adsense so they don’t have to spend time looking for advertisers.
I’ve personally sold advertising in the past, for several years, but ultimately, I realized I could make better money just promoting affiliate products, and it required less work and hassle. However, some bloggers make a great income selling ad space. To each their own!
Final Thoughts
There you have it folks.These are my best tips on how to advertise on your website and get paid. It’s pretty simple. What are your thoughts? What tips can you recommend to our readers? What have you tried in the past that worked well for you? How do you advertise on your website and get paid? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.
Chuck Holmes
20+ Year Network Marketing Professional
Top Earner & Top Recruiter
Email: mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
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