Guest post by Raja
There are many ways to get traffic to your sites nowadays, but along with the tried and true Search Engine Optimization for organic traffic and Pay Per Click ads on search engines, buying banners and ads on other blogs and websites remains one of the most effective ways to do it.
There are plenty of blogs and pages on social networks on pretty much any topic you can think of, and having an ad on them pointing to your site or a special landing page is a great strategy for getting new traffic, improving your SE ranking and of course, making money.
You should definitely start investigating the possibility of acquiring banners and ads on other sites, but before you actually go through with it, here are a few things you should do to make sure you get the best deal possible:
1. Check the site’s history. Before even contacting the website’s owner, you should check its history. A domain’s history is pretty influential for the sites it’s linking to. If the domain was used by squatters or worse, scammers or phishing rings, then it’s highly likely that its links won’t do you much good, and the site itself is probably not getting much traffic any way.
You should also see what kind of content was posted on the site in the past using the Wayback Machine – if the quality was good and consistent throughout its lifetime, then it’s a good candidate for purchasing banners on.
2. Check the site’s popularity. You should also make sure that the site is popular. Check the search engines to see how many pages are indexed and how many backlinks and mentions on other sites there are. Also, use services like WebsiteOutlook and Alexa to see the approximate the amount of traffic the site gets.
One of the best things you can do to check if the site gets enough traffic is to ask the owner for access to the analytics page – Google Analytics has this feature, and if the owner doesn’t use it, they can always take a few screenshots of their analytics panel.
3. Negotiate on the price. You should always negotiate on the price – there’s no reason to pay more if you can get the same for less. If the blog is great and there are no other ads, it means that the owner hasn’t yet gotten any offers, so you can negotiate a lower price at least for the first month to see how the traffic will convert. Also, you can get a lower price if you pay in advance for several months, which is always a good idea (you should get and test ads for at least 2-3 months).
4. Create a custom banner/ad. The best way to make sure you get a high click through ratio for your banners is to design them from scratch specifically for the site you’re buying them on. It doesn’t take that much time and effort, and the results are always worth it.
You should consider the site’s design, readership and the ad’s position when creating your ad – for example, something with a mix of beautiful colors or a funny image always works better if your banner is not on the first half of the page.
5. Set up tracking and analytics. If possible, you should set up separate tracking for every banner, so you can see how they’re performing and adjust them from month to month. It’s not that hard to do in Google Analytics, and the data will pay off in the long run for sure.
Buying media on blogs and pages related to your own site or product is a perfect way to get traffic and make money – that is especially true when you’re in a very competitive niche, where a selected few sites dominate the front page of the search engines and the PPC ads are too expensive. As with anything, though, you should proceed with due diligence, so be sure to use the above 5 tips when buying ads and banners on other sites.
Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in advertising here at WeBlogBetter, check out the ad options on the Advertise Page.
About RajaK
Thanks for the tips! It’s very useful for me because I’m considering buy some for my blog, and building back link. I hope It’ll bring more traffic.
Cheers,
Ana recently posted..Pseudo 2012 BRRip 600MB
This is really a very informative article. I especially like the practical tip to “negotiate” before buying. Most people tend to think that quoted prices are always fixed and non-negotiable. It certainly won’t hurt to haggle a little and quote a price most convenient and affordable for you. You might even be surprised how far these people can go to accommodate your price.
Engrossing share . Wayback Machine is an update to me. Would indeed like to enquire more about it and bring it to use , Setting up separate tracking for every banner to track their performance is indeed a great piece of advice .
Purnima recently posted..Search Engine Optimisation – Choose your battles to win the war!
great tips, I thing one should never ignore negotiating part. I remember an instance where one of my friend shaved 40% of the originally quoted price while negotiation and a couple of months advance payment.
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Twitter: wotthetech
says:
Good post, i was looking for some good info like this on things to follow before i decide to buy ads. thanks :)
Suroor Wijdan recently posted..WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe [Giveaway]
Twitter: GTAMattKerr
says:
Thanks for the post. I had never heard of the Wayback Machine until you mentioned it. Looks interesting so i will check that out later today.
Thanks again.
You need to consider all these things before buying ads. Who wants a site that is not good and has a bad image, you really need to check its history. Tracking and customizing it should be performed so that it will be successful. This is a great help.
Nice article, but I don’t think any bloggers needs to advertise on other blogs, this post is more targeted to the sellers rather than bloggers.
Ankit recently posted..Clever Facebook Status Updates
Twitter: cursor4life
says:
I don’t understand what the meaning of buying ad on blog or website. Can someone explain it to me and its advantages to my site?
Tijani recently posted The Top 5 Scenarios That Signifies “No More Love”
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Thanks for providing us useful and informative tips it is really a big help. And i agree with you that we need to consider the different factors before buying ads. Thanks for the post!
When it comes to free hosting, you’ll likely get what you don’t pay for until it’s time for an upgrade. With that, the more money you invest in a website the more confident you’ll be toward growing a successful online business.
Twitter: bestdailygames
says:
If you don’t give a big attention at first tip, you have chances to be fooled like i was, and another important thing that i realized here is the banner, thanks for this tips.
Paul recently posted..Farm Frenzy 3 Madagascar
Twitter: strategi_web
says:
I usually purchase a banner ad on BSA and I always look for these requirements:
1. Site’s traffic and alexa ranking
2. where visitors are coming from
3. bounce rate
4. niche
I care less about how much I will be charged but I prefer the lower price of course.
Twitter: RelationshipCir
says:
I don’t advertise on other blogs yet – but these tips are useful. I tend to fly into stuff thinking “This looks good” and then wonder why it’s not so good after getting involved. So, I’ll do my homework first and the get advertising.
Because I don’t advertise on other sites I’ve never really check into what other sites charge for advertisement. I was stunned to see the low price for this blog – I’m actually charging more for text links on my site than you are for banners. I was approached for advertising and just kind of came up with a number in my head. They didn’t haggle – they just accepted…so is there an online rule of thumb for charging for advertising or is it really a blog owner decides type of thing?
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Twitter: JupiterJimFLA
says:
Yes, using Alexa is a great tip for checking or getting a fairly good idea of the popularity of the blog or WordPress website. It’s amazing how a site can look good and still have dismal Alexa rankings. Also, like you said, if the site has little or no advertsing then this is something new to them and they don’t have a lot of offers and now is the time to negotiate a low price. Try to guess about how many click throughs and purchases you would need to make in order to have the ad make you some money before you start negotiating a price!
Thanks for the useful article!
– Jupiter Jim
Jupiter Jim recently posted..WordPress Tutorial: Add “Facebook Fan Page LIKE Box” to your WordPress Blog or Website
Site’s history is the most important But one more thing is important is that site’s daily visits, pageviews countrywise. You must do a check on these before buying ad space on blogs and sites.
Thorough research is a very important step before investing on a site. Flipping a site and buying are ways to generate income out of websites. In ads, you need to consider the authority,PR and the traffic coming to that site. Your right, analytics is a great tool to determine if you’re gonna make money out of it.
Paul recently posted..The Best Ways To Get More ReTweets – Professional Marketing on Twitter
Great tips you have shared us here…Thanks a lot then!
Ayyie recently posted..Overcome Anxiety
With these tips you’ve shared for sure that blogs owners will definitely be strict in choosing the ads that they will have. I do agree that having ads on your blogs will surely give a very good attraction to people and somehow may give additional factors to rank.
Thanks for the following advice and tips on what to do before buying an ads on blogs. Check the sites popularity and check the sites history is the first thing to consider first.
Danyelle Franciosa recently posted..Bifold Doors Brisbane
Twitter: Pcmaster0
says:
Agreed with the above said points, and do not forget to check whether that blog/website is black hat or white hat one. As this is going to affect your rankings too.
Thanks for sharing the list though :)
Amit Sharma recently posted..Samsung Galaxy Fit S5670 – Review, Specification and Price
Twitter: xboxpcpro
says:
very good tips I espicially the checking the sites past history – good idea as otherwise you could end up putting an ad on a page that may not even be indexed or doing well now – thanks
A great collection of tips! Thanks for sharing them, they are very useful for me. I had been searching for some advices to set up ads on several sites for a while, when I’ve found your blog finally. Thanks for these useful tips!
Twitter: trafficgrand
says:
Yes Raja, what you said was right we have to look at the history of the website before buying adspace and also ask the owner of the blog to show his or her latest traffic stats so that we can estimate whether buying ad space on that blog is a good move or not?
Karun recently posted..Drive Traffic To Your Blog From Yahoo Answers
Twitter: trungpc81
says:
Nice advice, it’s awesome experience to help those who want to promote blog/product through ADs. Thanks for share.
Twitter: abhibalani
says:
I’m not going to buy ads for my blog so this article will not help me in this case. BUT this article will surely help me in attracting advertisers to my blog.
Thanks for awesome tips.
Abhi Balani recently posted..Good Blogger And A Good Blog: What Are The Signs?
Twitter: trungpc81
says:
Yep, I also thought that – it will help us in attracting advertisers as well.
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Twitter: techsparx1
says:
Check the site’s popularity. is one of the most important thing to consider …by the way the points u have mentioned there is really nice and learning thnx for the great tips
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Twitter: mkvfilms
says:
Thank you very much for the tips! I never buy blog advertising before, but I’m considering buy some for my blog, and building back link too. Btw, can you suggest that we should buy ads from the side have the same content or site with different content but better traffic? Thanks!
Jame recently posted..Recoil (2011) BRRip 1.3GB
I have done so many media buys with work on small time sites (sometimes even just for SEO benifits) to large newspaper sites and you are right to suggest haggling.
I think you should always aim to take 30% off the initial suggested price.
Poppy recently posted..Car breakdown cover
I had been thinking of using blogs to promote lately. Thank you for pointing out these critical information. I will definitely follow it. My question is are there websites that generate banners or blogs that generate banners?
Yes, there are lots of banner creation venues. rightbanners, 99designs or you can try forums too
Raja recently posted..Cloudscaling Launches Open Stack Based Cloud Infrastructure
Twitter: bestplugins_wp
says:
Raj, these are some great tips for anyone looking to purchase ads.
Buying ads is easy to do but can either generate great rewards or really put a hole in your wallet.
The use of banner ads can have an additional side affect as opposed to just gaining traffic, which is brand awareness, if a person see’s enough of the ads on the various websites they visit in the same niche then it can add to the brands perceived authority (at least within that niche).
However if it’s a product you’re promoting the cheapest way to pull this off can be to run an affiliate program, especially with high commissions, that way a lot more blog owners will be more likely to promote (providing it’s a good product) and a lot of them will put them in as default ads.
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Twitter: ForteProperties
says:
I’ve never looked in to buying ads on websites and blogs, but if I do… I am glad I came across this post. It gave me the tools to ensure I keep on the lookout for my best interests. Thanks for sharing!
Chris recently posted..Learn the Basics of Buying Owner Financed Homes & Real Estate
Twitter: narutobux
says:
Nice post, I am more agree with your 5th list above. Google analytics is the most accurate analyze than other analytics sites like alexa, hitstats, sitemeter and the other cause with Google analytics we can see how much and what’s sites most reffered visitor to sites that’s people want to advertise and still many webmaster manipulated their analyze (other google analytics) results with software or something else that’s can make their results more higher.
Twitter: richescornercom
says:
Great tips to follow before investing in advertising on a website. You want to get the best bang for your buck, so you definitely want to make sure that you are advertising on an effective website.
Richard recently posted..Get Free TV with Playon
Twitter: OriginalJLogan
says:
Nice advice on buying ads!
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Twitter: WendyAMProsser
says:
Not something I plan to do in the near future, but I’ve Tweeted the post because it sounds like sensible advice.
Wendy A.M. Prosser recently posted..Out Of The Groove
Thanks a Lot Wendy!
Twitter: harvestwages
says:
Thanks for this info. When i just started blogging, i used to make such mistakes – paying for an ad space just after looking at the appearance of a website. I never cared much about the traffic or website history.
Thanks for this useful and informative tips! We should be aware how ads can help us in putting on our blogs.
Bethany153 recently posted..Luxury Hotels In Singapore
Wow! Thanks for those reminders. Buying Ads can be very tempting especially when it is your first time and you forget that there are some important things to consider in doing so. This is really helpful.
Thanks for the great tips, I am totally agree with your ideas that you need to consider first different factors when you decided to trust your ads on a websites…
Brenda recently posted..Unlock iPhone 4
Many people think that banner advertising is dead and it doesn’t bring the good results as it used to 3 or 4 years ago. However, i can tell everyone that it’s one of the best advertising methods available today. However, the key is in the blog you’re advertising on (some blogs have high readers confidence rate while others simply don’t). Thanks
M Mark
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hihanks for the tips as I usually buy some banners with our local sites and I am usually sure of the quality of the banners and the results that I am likely to get, but at the same time I have never done it alone and your tips will give me a hand to decide before making the final decision.
Very informative post Raja. I have a hard time with negotiating price, because there is no sure-fire way of predicting the value of this type of advertising. Even if you get an estimated amount of traffic to the site and combine that with a conservative and proven conversion rate of 2%, you still would be guessing if you will connect with the audience.
Any detailed suggestions on negotiating that you have used?
-Joe
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HI Joe,
There are some sites that will offer you a chance to test the traffic before you buy for long term. if i was selling ad space, i wouldnt mind to give my buyer a chance to test if i believe he is genuinely interested.
-Raja
Raja recently posted..Cloudscaling Launches Open Stack Based Cloud Infrastructure
Twitter: salman1507
says:
Great share Raja…. Pretty nice tips to look for before buying ads on websites or blogs. Agree with your words on negotiating the price. Truly said that “there’s no reason to pay more if you can get the same for less”
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Twitter: tmesolutions
says:
Great post Raja,
Got to agree with the last point about tracking – a must! A blog can get thousands of visits a day, but if they don’t sent visits to you which *convert*, it’s a useless resource.
Twitter: ModestMoney
says:
These are all important things to do when buying ads on a website or blog. Be aware that in some niches a lot of visitors subconsciously ignore ads, especially if they are in a sidebar. So if a sidebar ad isn’t working, you might want to try switching it to a more prominent location to see if it performs well. While it is important that an ad is appropriate for a specific site, it also needs to stand out somehow and attract people’s attention. Negotiating is extremely important too. Unless the ads are in high demand, you can usually negotiate a better price.
Jeremy recently posted..My Decision To Live In An Expensive City
Buying a banner can be great for SEO and for natural referral traffic. But I agree, check the domain authority is essential.
Hi Raja! I find your post very informative and it is very easy to follow. Thank you for sharing these tips before purchasing ads for my website.
dawntracy34 recently posted..Women's Health Blog
Great Insight on buying ads for blogs, i will definitely follow this the next time i make a purchase for some ads.
Next Horizon
Orlando Web Design
Twitter: vijaychauhan007
says:
Short and sweet guide.. Point to point.. Like going through it. Thanks for sharing. :)
Prithvi recently posted..List of the cheapest tablets available in India
All are valid points. It is important to check the relevancy of the blog so that it is helpful to get targeted traffic and conversions.
Such a nice quick guide,, thanks for sharing this useful information!
Julie recently posted..wisdom teeth
Twitter: freedommmc
says:
Good article Raj,
I have had iffy experiences purchasing ads, what I find as a good indicator is how hard it is to buy an advertisement. If it is too easy then it probably isn’t going to get you a return on your investment.
If there is a waiting list or a real demand then that tells you that advertisers have been doing well there. However the price will be more costly. This is where guest blogging makes more sense.
Jacko recently posted..How hard is it to get views on Youtube?
Yes! I have been on some waiting lists and they were all really popular sites.
Raja recently posted..Cloudscaling Launches Open Stack Based Cloud Infrastructure
Thanks for the tips as I usually buy some banners with our local sites and I am usually sure of the quality of the banners and the results that I am likely to get, but at the same time I have never done it alone and your tips will give me a hand to decide before making the final decision.
Twitter: Janis167
says:
Good list to follow :) And follow point by point :)