To
answer this question first and foremost ask yourselves why should an
advertiser choose your blog? why Should he spend money by advertising
his product on your site? What benefits or to be more precise what value
does your blog provides to the sponsor? How can you guarantee that his
product wont get neglected if he chooses to buy an Ad Spot on your blog?
Too many questions but a simple logical answer to all of them and that
is provide him with Quality. Read on to understand this logic. What do Advertisers Look For in your Blog?
The
biggest misconception in the minds of web owners and newbie bloggers is
that if you have consistent and huge amount of traffic then you are the
Man!. The bigger your traffic value the hotter your pockets. Yes that is true but for AdSense alone. The fact for direct Sponsors is entirely different from this propagated set of thinking.
Advertising services like Chitika, Adsense
and Infolinks require nothing from you except huge flow of traffic. You
surely earn more when you receive great amount of traffic because your
Click through rate (CTR) depends on the number of unique visitors and
page views made per day. So if Adsense is happy with you then does this means that even Buysellads will give you a thumbs up? The answer is a straight no!
BuysellAds is an advertising service which connects Publishers directly with advertisers. You create Ad Spots
on your blog and sponsors come and buy that spot from you. BuysellAds
unlike Adsense gives importance to a lot of factors which in order of
decreasing importance are:
- Alexa Rank ($$ Most Important)
- Subscribers and Facebook Likes (Readers)
- Page Impressions (Traffic)
- PageRank (Trust)
As
you can see clearly Alexa holds the most important position followed by
your readership no matter whether they are RSS readers or Facebook
followers. Page Impressions give an idea of how much traffic you are
receiving. If your Page Impressions are greater than 100,000 then it
means you are receiving 5000+ pageviews daily which means 2000+ visitors
per day. Finally comes the PageRank which has the least importance in the eyes of Advertiser. Lets now discuss in detail why Alexa is so much important?
Why Advertisers Value Alexa so much?
Alexa
is an algorithm which is based on the use of Alexa toolbar. This
toolbar provides hottest news headlines around the globe and provides
you with easy shortcuts to important websites and social networks and
resources. That's why it is so popular. Bloggers and journalists often
get topic ideas from the news headlines popping in their Alexa bar. This
Toolbar is different from any other toolbar. It also tracks which
websites are you viewing and how much time are you spending browsing
different sites and blogs. If you have Alexa toolbar installed and you
are reading my blog then indirectly you are benefiting me by telling
Alexa team "Hey I like MBT Please rank it higher!"
and when more and more people visit my blog provided that they have
Alexa toolbar installed, I rank higher and higher. As simple as that.
Quick Note: Alexa
Rank is good when it is low and bad when it is high. A Blog With Alexa
Rank 10k means that only 10,000 websites are better than it. A blog with
Alexa Rank 100K means that around 100,000 websites are better than it. A
site with Alexa Rank 1 or 2 means that it is the best site found
online. No website is better than the one with Alexa Rank 1.0. So a
smaller Alexa Rank means higher ranking.
Alexa
tells advertiser whether a site is receiving quality traffic or not. By
quality traffic I mean people having good tech knowledge, people who
enjoy shopping online and people who enjoy reading about new and latest
technology updates. These are the people Advertisers are looking for!
Alexa toolbar as I said is usually used by webmasters, web owners,
journalists, bloggers, technology analysts and everyone who loves being
techy.
Alexa does not depend on how much
visitors you receive daily. You can receive thousands of visitors per
day and yet having an Alexa rank of 100k (Not Good) and someone else
could be receiving just 1000-2000 visitors per day and still having an
Alexa Rank of less than 15K(Great).
How come Traffic is not important?
It
is but Traffic is not the sole backbone of a successful blog. If you
have no readership and site rankings but still receiving thousands of
visitors per day then your site offer no value to the sponsor. Why?
Because it is mostly your blog readers that buy a product after you
recommend it and it is usually your shining Alexa Rank that tells a
Sponsor "Dude I offer people with credit cards!"
If your Alexa Rank is 50k or above then it means that most of your
traffic or general audience are teenagers and college boys, surfing for
fun and entertainment with no intention to shop online. Thus offering no
returns to the sponsor.
You can find a lot of
blogs with tons of daily visitors and even good PageRank but with no
impressive Alexa rank. The answer as I said lies in offering quality and
not quantity. Blogs with no readership, Facebook followers and rankings
such as PR and Alexa, offer no value to the advertiser.
How To Improve Blog Rankings then?
Write
less but write best. Do not spam search engines with short and
duplicated content. Most technology blogs share the same summarized
content and circulate it by writing the same post in short paragraphs.
Write for your readers and force them to stumble and bookmark your
content. Do not worry about Revenue during the initial one year of your
career and do not add too many Ads on your blogs. Attract and keep
attracting loyal readers for continuous one year. Write at least two
posts per day and add social media buttons every where on your blog.
Keep post frequency constant and keep tracking your Alexa Rank. Build
your network and expand your circle. Do exchange links but at most with 5
quality bloggers. Write unique posts with at least 300 words to avoid Google panda effect.
Final Advice
No
one can claim to be successful because there are always bigger names
ahead of you but do always keep a closer look on what they do and learn
from them. Be polite in tone and always consider yourself a student and
never a master. Be patient because a fruitful result does demand time.
Give your self a one year of struggling period and track your
performance consistently. Do not give up hope if you loose a Rank, just
keep posting regularly and write on new and latest topics. Think of what
Internet audience would like and always write on current happenings.
When Christmas is near then write on posts related to Christmas and when
EID is near then write on things that would attract Muslim visitors.
Genius
are you my friend! Just realize your inner strength and potential and
utilize your time smartly. May you achieve what you always dreamt for.
Wishing you love, peace and a happy successful life online. Peace
buddies! :>