Making Your Blog Buisness Friendly - Philadelphia Social Media
For the past two weeks I've been doing searches for blogs that would be appropriate for my client to advertise on. It's the dream of many people to blog for a living, to get paid to write about subject matter that is important to you. Well I have to tell you... you're making it difficult for me to pay you any money. So I've decided to put together some tips and guides to making your blog more attractive to businesses looking to capture your reader's interest.
Location Keywords
Since many of my clients are the contractor type, they have a service area. So the first thing I do is try to find blogs tied to location. However not many people think about putting a city, state or county name on their blogs. After all, most blogs are supposed to have a global appeal correct? Well not really. Some blogs talk about local issues, other blogs are geared toward the right demographic I'm looking for, while still more blogs happen to talk about the sorts of things that compliment my client's services. Examples: A blog about West Chester Courthouse Cases, A blog on Flipping Houses (if my client sells windows this is useful to me), A blog on being a retired Electrician (the tips and advice compliment home remodeling companies). Placing some location specific keywords somewhere on your main blog page (anywhere at all, doesn't have to be in the title) will open one more door of opportunity for you.
*You should NEVER write a blog for the purpose of gaining advertising. The result will be disingenuous and poorly written. Write what you want to write about, there are plenty of advertisers out there looking for your type of reader.
Posting Statistics
I want to see some sort of statistics on the amount of people view your blog. I DO NOT want to see all the clicks you have received during the history of your blog. I want to see a monthly count of Unique Visitors and if possible, how many are repeat visitors. Placing Google Analytics on your blog and then posting up the monthly results for those two items on the first of the month would be very useful to me.
Frequency of Posting
I'm not interested in a blog that doesn't post, at minimum, once a week. Ideally I'd like to see a post every day, but that's unreasonable for many bloggers who aren't being paid. I have to see that your producing articles on a frequent enough basis that it will draw readers back to your blog.
Adsense
If you use blogger, and even if you don't, placing Adsense on your blog will give me the ability to place ads on your website. If a business, like my client, is running a Content Network Campaign and I can pick your website on a list of available blogs, I don't even have to go looking for your blog. This is a no brainer, you get paid AND I don't have to do random google searches to HOPE I run across your blog in the haystack that is relative search engine results.
Take a Hand in Your Own Success
If you think your blog speaks to a businesses demographic, approach them and ask if they would like to place a link on your blog. It can't hurt. In many cases a business owner won't understand what your talking about, but if they are at all web savvy it will get them thinking about it and they may call you up a month or two down the road. Don't forget, business owners have to spend their marketing capitol carefully, the smaller the business the more careful they are. Let the owner stew over the idea for a while, they generally come around.
Make A Media Kit
If your not using Adsense but would like to sell space on your blog via banner ads, you should create a price list. Clearly state in your Media Kit what your offering, size of ad, length of term, cost and payment methods. If you're having trouble figuring out what you charge a company for a banner ad or text link on your blog then just think about what you'd like to be paid per article, ideally. Shoot high and lower your costs if you can't get any interest. The more traffic your blog gets and the frequency of your postings will weigh heavily on the price you can ask for. There is no industry standard for blog advertising so be prepared to bargain. This subject deserves it's own post, to be honest. There are so many different ways to charge for advertising online that several comparisons need to be made.
PayPal Buttons
Easy to make and implement on your blog, a perfect way for me to buy a link off of you with the company credit card. Set up the payment button, I pay you, you get an email to put up my link... as simple as that.
Location Keywords
Since many of my clients are the contractor type, they have a service area. So the first thing I do is try to find blogs tied to location. However not many people think about putting a city, state or county name on their blogs. After all, most blogs are supposed to have a global appeal correct? Well not really. Some blogs talk about local issues, other blogs are geared toward the right demographic I'm looking for, while still more blogs happen to talk about the sorts of things that compliment my client's services. Examples: A blog about West Chester Courthouse Cases, A blog on Flipping Houses (if my client sells windows this is useful to me), A blog on being a retired Electrician (the tips and advice compliment home remodeling companies). Placing some location specific keywords somewhere on your main blog page (anywhere at all, doesn't have to be in the title) will open one more door of opportunity for you.
*You should NEVER write a blog for the purpose of gaining advertising. The result will be disingenuous and poorly written. Write what you want to write about, there are plenty of advertisers out there looking for your type of reader.
Posting Statistics
I want to see some sort of statistics on the amount of people view your blog. I DO NOT want to see all the clicks you have received during the history of your blog. I want to see a monthly count of Unique Visitors and if possible, how many are repeat visitors. Placing Google Analytics on your blog and then posting up the monthly results for those two items on the first of the month would be very useful to me.
Frequency of Posting
I'm not interested in a blog that doesn't post, at minimum, once a week. Ideally I'd like to see a post every day, but that's unreasonable for many bloggers who aren't being paid. I have to see that your producing articles on a frequent enough basis that it will draw readers back to your blog.
Adsense
If you use blogger, and even if you don't, placing Adsense on your blog will give me the ability to place ads on your website. If a business, like my client, is running a Content Network Campaign and I can pick your website on a list of available blogs, I don't even have to go looking for your blog. This is a no brainer, you get paid AND I don't have to do random google searches to HOPE I run across your blog in the haystack that is relative search engine results.
Take a Hand in Your Own Success
If you think your blog speaks to a businesses demographic, approach them and ask if they would like to place a link on your blog. It can't hurt. In many cases a business owner won't understand what your talking about, but if they are at all web savvy it will get them thinking about it and they may call you up a month or two down the road. Don't forget, business owners have to spend their marketing capitol carefully, the smaller the business the more careful they are. Let the owner stew over the idea for a while, they generally come around.
Make A Media Kit
If your not using Adsense but would like to sell space on your blog via banner ads, you should create a price list. Clearly state in your Media Kit what your offering, size of ad, length of term, cost and payment methods. If you're having trouble figuring out what you charge a company for a banner ad or text link on your blog then just think about what you'd like to be paid per article, ideally. Shoot high and lower your costs if you can't get any interest. The more traffic your blog gets and the frequency of your postings will weigh heavily on the price you can ask for. There is no industry standard for blog advertising so be prepared to bargain. This subject deserves it's own post, to be honest. There are so many different ways to charge for advertising online that several comparisons need to be made.
PayPal Buttons
Easy to make and implement on your blog, a perfect way for me to buy a link off of you with the company credit card. Set up the payment button, I pay you, you get an email to put up my link... as simple as that.
posted by Seigfried Designs | 6:53 AM
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