Advertise Space - Blog Avertising » 2008 » May

1. Don’t hijack the page. Full page takeovers are even more obnoxious and intrusive than pop-ups. At least most pop-ups can be blocked. Never force someone to view an ad. Everyone should have the choice to view or ignore any advertisement, anywhere.

2. Don’t use sound. Banners should for the most part not make noise of any kind. Unless perhaps it is a movie trailer ‘AND’ the user has initiated the action. This means that they have either rolled over it and/or clicked on it. If not, don’t play sound. EVER. If you site using flash embedded with sound, remove it. Nothing makes a user close a site faster than music blaring. (Except maybe un-intentionally opened porn at the office)

3. Don’t go NASCAR. Pick a set number of banners and stick with it. Don’t just keep adding banners because you can sell them. 6-8 should be max. If you have to make more money, up the price instead of adding more.

4. Don’t sell pop-ups! These should have been wiped from the web years ago. They fucking piss everyone off. They are visual spam. They suck, bottom line. Don’t use them. Period.

5. Don’t pretend they’re not ads. Doing a paid review on your site is an advertisement. If you were paid, it is an ad. Disclose it.

More reading:

Top 5 most annoying Internet ads of all time

The world of annoying ads

1. Before you start: Make sure the URL you choose contains keywords relevant to the topic of your blog.
2. Use the title tag correctly. It should contain the blog name and a very concise description using target keywords.
3. Use your ‘about us’ section correctly. It should contain a power summary of what your blog is and what it covers, also containing second level target keywords.
4. Know thy competition. Check out a similar blog in your space that ranks higher in the searches than your blog does for your target keywords. View their style, format, meta tags, title tag, category list, blog roll etc. See what they are doing differently that favours the SERP’s
5. Don’t put your blog on a sub page. People tend to link to your main URL more often, so you will get more link backs that way.
6. Don’t use the ‘more’ feature. It breaks up your post which makes it harder for the search bots to understand (think fragmented hard drive) “I recommend full-text RSS feeds to get loyal users. Partial feeds get more page views, but not as much love.” –Matt Cutts
7. Check out Keyword searches. Look for relevant keywords for your blog and check the monthly search frequency of each. AdWords keyword checker
8. Avoid generic category names. Use category names that are also relevant keywords for you blog avoiding generic names. (Photos, fun, other, miscellaneous. etc.) Also limit the number, don’t tag everything.
9. Use keywords in URL path. Use a dash / or underscore _ and avoid using spaces.
10. Don’t duplicate content. Search engine robots are constantly scanning all sites and looking for exact copies of content and deleting the copies from the SERP’s. If you are referring to another post, try to write it in your own words. When quoting someone, quote small snippets and not entire paragraphs.

My favourite SEO blogs:

Search Engine Land I’ve been reading this for year. Danny Sullivan is one of the best in the business and I’ve seen him speak a few times.

Marketing Pilgrim Andy Beal another veteran of the industry along with a few other bloggers including Janet Meiners.

SEO tradeshows you may wish to attend:

http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/

Ok this is still one thing that really irks me. Every person that I’ve ever met from any ad network has the exact same pitch. “We have the best CPM’s in the industry” Wow, how is it that everyone has the highest rate? There can be only one number one. Give us a real CPM. What is a real CPM you ask? $10. Now that is a CPM. $1 is not. One dollar is what crappy remnant house inventory sells for. Zwinky quality. Don’t give me a buck. Give me at least $5, or don’t bother pitching me. Even AdSense has you beat if you want to pay $2 and then request frequency capping and/or pass backs on non-US inventory.

OK so what is the solution for these ad networks who all copy each other and all claim the same thing?

- Come up with a different model. Stop following everyone else and innovate.

- Pick a niche space and own it. “Go Green Ad Network” (Doesn’t exist, at least I don’t think so?)

- Raise your qualifications. Increase the quality of your publishers and you can charge a higher CPM’s. Stop accepting anyone into your network, just to raise you ComScore numbers and inflated fluffy reach.

- Sell ads at real CPM’s and then actually pay out a good percentage to your publishers. (Casale Media is doing 70% at the moment)

So who is actually at the top? That’s what I’d really like to know. Which ad network constantly out performs all others? Leave a comment if you’ve had any success and got paid real money from anyone.

3rd party services like Pubmatic and Rubicon will eventually answer this questions for all of us and settle the score once and for all and the cheap networks will fall…