Finding advertisers for your blog is hard. Unfortunately, you’re not alone in this struggle; most new bloggers have this same problem.
However, since I’ve been pro blogging since 2004, I’ve found a few ways to get advertisers for your blog, plus a few extra ways to make money that works well.
Get Your Blog Ready Your Blog For Advertisements
Here are a few steps you can take to get your blog ready. Your goal is to make your blog ads friendly and easy for advertisers to work with.
How to Get Advertisers for your blog:
1. Make sure that it’s simple for an advertiser to add their ads. Nothing complicated; keep it clean and professional-looking.
It should be easy to figure out how to add an ad spot onto your blog layout easily without having any issues or asking anyone.
2. Decide if you want to have full-page ads or ad boxes along the side of your content (which we’ll talk about more in this article).
Full-page ads are nice to have because they draw your reader’s attention directly where you want them; however, people often find these annoying, defeating their purpose.
3. Choose what size banners will look best on top of your background banner. You can go with a simple square or rectangle shape, as long as they aren’t too big to take up the entire page.
They should be small enough to fit within an article post, such as in the sidebar, and not take up the whole screen.
4. Include contact details in your footer to make it easier for people to get in touch with you should they need anything or have any further questions about advertising on your blog.
5. Prepare a media kit for people to download; this can include your logo file, a banner size chart, website demographics, and traffic levels. All essential information that an advertiser might need.
Types of adverts you can offer
From simple text link ads to full-blown scroll mats and pop-ups, you have a range of advertising options to offer.
Text Links – This option is for those who want to keep their website clean, looking, and easy on the eyes. However, this can be a huge benefit if you’re writing content that relates to your advertisers in some way (e.g., fashion blog). Usually, bloggers will offer very high commission rates for using text links because they don’t require much space.
Sponsored posts – These are a prevalent form of advertisement and are where you write about a brand not to just praise it but also talk about how much you love their product or service. Some bloggers offer a flat fee, and then they post any game logos they get in the photos (they still get paid). Others ask for their sponsors to send them products to talk about the products on their website and blog page.
Sidebar ads – This is by far the most common way of adding advertisements to your website. You should set up your blog’s sidebar as an ad box; this allows people to source what products you’ve advertised in there with some simple text links.
Banner ads – Full-page adverts are a great way to get people’s attention. However, you will want these banners related to your blog or website to not look out of place.
Scroll mats – Scroll mats are when you have an image on the bottom of your content that advertises something. You’ll see them most often on blogs and news sites as a way to promote their latest articles or drive more clicks back through paid ads.
Pop-ups – These pop up after you’ve read a couple of sentences of an article which means that they’re really annoying and will chase people away from your site rather than bring them in. Pop-ups used to be quite common, but now, they’re less frequently used by bloggers and websites because they’re so annoying.
Pop-unders – These are a more subtle way to display an advert, as this only covers the top of the screen (not covering everything). You’ll notice that they usually have some sort of countdown timer. If you don’t click on it in time, it will come down and cover your whole screen, which is very annoying.
How to find advertisers for your blog
A website called BuySellAds.com is a great place to start in order to find advertisers. They have tons of advertisers for you to choose from.
However, the interface isn’t the easiest to work with, and it takes a bit of time to get everything set up so you can start selling your ad space.
You also miss out on some of the revenue if you go through these sort of other middleman companies because they take a chunk. This means that you’ll have less profit for doing the same amount of work.
The second way is to use a simple advertising network such as Adsense, Chitika, or Media.net.
These are all ad networks that pay advertisers to get their ads on your blog based on the number of page views and clicks they receive.
This approach is pretty well known, but these networks don’t work for everyone because of how strict they are with the types of blogs that can apply for an account.
Another way is to contact businesses directly and invite them to advertise. You can do this by sending an email.
Cold emails can be effective if they’re highly targeted.
My counter-culture hobby blog was 100% monetized via adverts, and I acquired most of my customers by sending cold emails – with the occasional phone call in the mix.
How to pitch to advertisers
This part is a challenge; you have to write a pretty convincing sales letter that entices people in order to find advertisers for your blog.
You need to be able to tell them how their advertising investment will benefit them and why they want their ads on your blog.
Don’t make it too hard for the advertiser. Make it as simple and painless as possible for them to say yes.
Show them your organic traffic levels, key demographics, and audience psychographic. Then, explain why their product and services will fit in with your readers.
Ways to increase revenue without ads
Let’s face it; adverts are ugly. They devalue your website, and they can be annoying, which is why many bloggers and website owners choose not to use them.
However, there are plenty of ways to increase revenue without using banners, pop-ups, scroll mats, or any other intrusive ad formats.
Here are a few options to consider:
Sell your own digital products – Physical products like books, CD’s and DVDs might still work, but the internet has provided us with a much better way of making money from our content.
For example, you can write e-books, which will help you make more money than if you were getting paid just for impressions on an advert banner.
If you have any special skills or valuable knowledge that other people might want, then sell this to them in the form of an E-book or video course.
Provide coaching services – There are always things that people would pay for, such as weight loss programs, how to cook healthy meals on a budget, and so on. Selling things like this will help you reach out to new customers and build stronger relationships with readers, which could lead to increased traffic and ad revenue.
Sell affiliate products – This is a great way to make money if you’re doing it right. Affiliate marketing is essentially selling someone else’s stuff and earning a cut in return for sending potential customers their way.
It won’t be as high of a commission rate as if the sale occurred on your own blog, but it is much more passive and can incentivize new readers because they will want to buy things that you recommend. Read this guide on how to start affiliate marketing.
Offer premium content – It might cost money for people to access your premium content, but there are many ways that you could do this. For example, using paywalls or by creating exclusive membership areas where only members can access certain content sections, will work great.
Conclusion
There are plenty of ways to create revenue as a blogger, and there’s no one size fits all approach. You’ll struggle to make any money using adverts, affiliates, or even selling your own digital products unless you’re an expert in that field.
You need to find your niche and go deep into it to build an audience who is loyal to you. Once you’ve built up a loyal following, then you will be rewarded with increased traffic, which is when the real fun begins.