So you’ve started a blog and you’re starting to get some decent traffic from the original content you’ve been creating. You organic SEO campaign is paying off and driving a reasonable amount of traffic to your blog every day. You’ve been submitting your blog to high quality blog directories and social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and Searchles. You’ve added Entrecard and MyBlogLog widgets to your sidebar and have become active in each of those respective communities. Everything is going better than planned, or is it ?
When you started your blog, it seemed the traffic bursts were the de facto and it was easy to get short term spikes by utilizing clever linkbait or posting a well written, informative article. However, once things have leveled off and you’ve noticed traffic has not been surging past typical bursts, what do you do for your traffic to boost to the next level?
It’s simple, if you’re blog’s scenario is relatively close to what is described above, there’s no way around it but it’s time for you to start using advertising campaigns to generate not only traffic but to increase brand marketing. Running an online advertising campaign can be a daunting task, especially if you’ve never done it before or have no experience in convential advetising. There are many components that factor into running a successful advertising or marketing campaign but for the sake of discussion, I will only focus on online advertising companies that offer the greatest amount of exposure for the least amount of money.
Most bloggers are not operating with deep pockets, so being thrifty with your advertising dollars is essential in order to spread your budget around and get the most bang for your buck. Below I’ll share with you my own personal experiences for how to maximize your advertising budget. Even if it is only $20-$50 per month, there are still some great sources that will appeal to even the thriftiest amongst us.
1.) PerformancingAds - (http://www.performancingads.com/)
PerformancingAds is a fantastic advertising medium for those operating on a limited budget. Using the service you will be able to find effective, influential blogs and highly targeted audiences to advertise. Advertisers can make easy and secure payments with PayPal with all major credit cards accepted. I have used the PerformancingAds network to promote this blog and I can honestly say that for my meager $100 per month budget dedicated specifically to PA listed sites, the return is uncomparable to any other advertising program I’ve ever been involved with in the past. The best part is that you’re not paying for clicks, you’re paying to occupy space so click-fraud is irrelevant.
2.) AdToll - (http://www.adtoll.com/)
AdToll has been a relative sleeper in the online advertising community but recently they have become one of my favorite sources for finding high quality advertising for a superb price. AdToll makes your advertising effort easy, convenient and effective. You have the option of fixed price Sponsored Ads or Cost-Per-Click (CPC) based Run of Network Ads. Advertisers can browse the growing site directory and find a particular site you want to advertise on, view the rate card then proceed to make a booking. Click the button below to go to the site directory. Payments are made by Paypal which means all major credit cards accepted.
3.) Project Wonderful - (http://www.projectwonderful.com)
Project Wonderful is an online advertising broker with an innovative model that brings fairness, transparency, and profitability to the advertising process. Although I’m still pretty pissed with their slacker staff for rejecting my blog from their publisher program, I’ve stuck with them only for the purpose of purchasing ultra cheap advertising on some fantastic up and coming blogs for literally pennies per day. Even though they are quite anal retentive about approving quality publishers and tend to allow blogs that wouldn’t be approved in other networks, I do find they live up to their motto : Find advertising opportunities at the price you like.
While there are numerous avenues for advertising a blog on the internet, the three companies I’ve listed above as your best bet to find inexpensive advertising on newer blogs. A distinct advantage of advertising on up and coming blogs is that you’re getting in while they’re cheap and you can never be sure when one of them might make it to the front page of Digg or some other social media site and turn you multitudes of traffic for pennies on the dollar.
Maybe this is something I can work into my blog for some extra revenue because Google Adsense has dropped so much that I need to find new monetization techniques.
Performancing Ads is on its way to becoming the next very big thing on the Internet and especially among bloggers who use 125×125 a lot.
I subscribed already and I am trying to get people to subscribe through me with a little incentive. An idea I got from John Chow. Who else!
Maybe you should try it guys!
In this stage of blogging, affiliate marketing sounds like the thing to do. Tackling pay per leads is what bloggers in this situation must do next. This earns them money, and keeps them motivated to work on increasing traffic.
Good site I \”Stumbledupon\” it today and gave it a stumble for you.. looking forward to seeing what else you have..later
Great info.Very good article.Bookmarked your blog plz keep it up :)
Nice blog - its good you have lots of different types of posts - formal,informal,short and long makes it a lot more fun to read.