News And Updates
If you are looking to implement advertising on your website or blog, here are some guidelines on how to do it. Also, if you are wondering how to get sponsors for what you are doing, offering advertising positions on your website for your sponsors should be one option.
Building your ad positions with the help of ad networks
Begin by joining Google AdSense, an affiliate program (or programs), and/or one or more ad networks where you can register and start displaying their ads in your site. Some ad networks have limitations or eligibility requirements that you must meet, like the number of visitors per week or Google page rank, but services like Google AdSense and most of the affiliate programs don’t.
The next step is to design your ad positions on your website or blog layout on all the pages where you want to allow advertising, or directly on your website or blog template. Using these ad networks, you can get all your ad positions filled out and begin receiving advertising revenue.
Once you have chosen and created your ad positions, you are already well on your way to showing potential advertisers the type of advertising options you can offer, like where the ad positions are on your site and what ad sizes (various banner dimensions) are available.
Depending on which ad networks you use and what tools they provide, you will get lots of statistical information about how the ads are performing in different ad positions on your website. Given the ad network and settings that you have selected, you will also start to understand what kind of advertisements from which advertisers are starting to show up on your website or blog, and where.
Determining your advertising rates (i.e., prices for advertising)
Establishing your advertising rates will probably feel challenging. When determining your ad rates, you have many options for getting information, but the most important tip is to get it started somewhere. The easiest way is to start is to calculate the ad revenue you are receiving via the ad networks. The ad revenue from direct ad sales should be somewhat higher.
Using the statistical information that you receive from the ad network(s) you are using, you can identify the best-performing ad positions and target those when you first start to create your own ad rate card for attracting direct advertising on your website or blog
To determine the right prices for advertising, you can do the following. Begin by looking at the ad networks statistics to identify the average revenue per position. Multiply that by a number ranging from two to five. Then offer a 20% discount on that price to attract advertisers.
You should also search the web to see what the average advertising rates are on other websites or blogs in your subject area. Understand that just like there are multiple ad types, ad sizes and ad positions, there are also many kinds of ad price models and advertising revenue models, like CPI (cost per impression), CPM and CPT (cost per mille and cost per thousand), CPC (cost per click), and PPC (pay per click). Other advertising rates are based on duration, like per week, per month, etc.
The right advertising rate depends very much on your audience and readers. The more targeted your website or blog is on a particular topic, the more valuable it is to advertisers. So the right advertising price depends on the volume of your visitors and the profile of your readers. The better you can match advertisers and readers, the better the advertising relationship will be for you, your readers and for the advertiser.
Creating your very own ad rate card
After you have determined your ad positions, advertising pricing models and advertising rates, you can easily create your own ad rate card. If you are looking for sample ad rate cards, you can find them in our rate card directory, which has ad rate cards created by other people. In our directory, rate cards are done based on our ad rate card template. You can use this template to create your own rate card. All you have to do is fill out a few web forms.
Advertise your advertising
After you have created your ad rate card, you should advertise your advertising opportunities on your website with a “view ad rate card” or “advertising details” link. To promote your advertising opportunities, you can add it to our rate cards directory for free. Advertisers use our directory to search for sites where they can advertise.
Now you have opened the door for potential direct advertising on your site and created a professional way for advertisers to find your site, study the advertising opportunities you are offering and contact you easily.
Offering direct advertising opportunities on your site is not really a big or burdensome step if you already have some ad network ads on your site. Naturally you replace network ads with direct ads only if/when you get them. This way, all your ad positions are generating maximum advertising revenue all the time.
There are good, free tools for managing your ad positions and ads from multiple sources. A tool like openX, can automatically switch your ads depending on the given criteria. For example, you can have adword ads running in one position and then you can add direct ads into the circulation with a higher ad revenue value. After the CPM or duration has ended for that particular ad, the tool switches back to lower-revenue ad.
Selling and promoting your ad positions
The next step beyond opening the door for potential advertisers to contact you is to promote and sell your ad space (or have someone else do it for you), but that’s only if you choose to go this far. Giving advertisers an option to buy direct does not mean that you have to start selling, too.
If you would like to sell, then you need to see which ads are performing well on your site, based on the ad networks’ ad statistics. Contact those advertisers or their competitors directly to offer them your best positions with a fixed term. This allows the advertiser to “own” your best position and shut out the competition
If you are not so keen to sell, you can try to make a tempting offer, which lowers the barrier to contact you and get ads created. You could try to offer free advertising for one week, 10 CPM, or something similar to get things started. This will increase your contacts with advertisers and start building relationships with them. You can target only those that you will accept on your site, meaning those that you believe have potential value for your visitors and readers.
Why can you expect more revenue from direct advertising than from ad networks?
- There is no middle man to take a cut.
- You are building the advertiser/publisher relationship, so when you work directly with the advertiser you can help to modify the ad to “hit” better with your readers, since you know your audience and to what it responds to.
- The greater the effort you make, the more revenue you will receive.
Direct ad sales are not intended to replace your other advertising revenue models (i.e., ad networks / affiliates) unless you can fill all your ad positions all the time with direct ad sales. Use both direct ad sales and other advertising revenue models, and always using the highest revenue source for each ad position.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Save to Browser Favorites
Ask
backflip
blinklist
BlogBookmark
Bloglines
BlogMarks
Blogsvine
BUMPzee!
CiteULike
co.mments
Connotea
del.icio.us
DotNetKicks
Digg
diigo
dropjack.com
dzone
Facebook
Fark
Faves
Feed Me Links
Friendsite
folkd.com
Furl
Google
Hugg
Jeqq
Kaboodle
linkaGoGo
LinksMarker
Ma.gnolia
Mister Wong
Mixx
MySpace
MyWeb
Netvouz
Newsvine
PlugIM
popcurrent
Propeller
Reddit
Rojo
Segnalo
Shoutwire
Simpy
sk*rt
Slashdot
Sphere
Sphinn
Spurl.net
Squidoo
StumbleUpon
Technorati
ThisNext
Webride
Windows Live
Yahoo!
Email This to a Friend
If you like this then please subscribe to the 
I have started one of the biggest tasks of my life, but with great passion! I’m trying to get bloggers and smaller print publications to understand their value in terms of advertising sales.
As for myself, I have a general business background. For the past four years, I have been offering consulting services to new entrepreneurs on their new startups and related topics.
This particular task began while I was working for a smaller nonprofit organization through pro bono consulting and seeing their day-to-day struggle to secure funding. I went ahead and started creating their ad sales from scratch with good results. At the same time, I started thinking that not knowing how to sell advertising must be a bigger problem. Never could I have imagined that this was a huge worldwide problem.
I started creating a tool that would help anyone create their ad rate card easily and start offering and selling their ad space directly.
My journey has just begun and the feedback I get from bloggers and smaller organizations just proves my point and convinces that I’m on the right path.
High-quality websites and good blogs with clear target audiences deserve to get their direct ad sales. Usually these sales are 3 to 10 (or even more) times higher than adwords revenue for the same site, depending on the audience.
There is no reason for some giant to take a big handful of revenue for its needs (even though we all do love Google so much) when someone else is attracting the right readers with their content. Print publications do not even have options like that.
That’s why I have created tools for direct advertising for everyone who has the right kind of media to benefit from direct sales. Now I just need to spread the word.
However, I’m a businessperson and I understand that real impact can be made only by making money. I’m all for business, since it is possible to do good business and great things at the same time. The new strategy calls for generating more revenue and/or cost savings overall so that the changes are not difficult to justify.
So I’m inviting others to join me in my efforts to help everyone understand the value of their own media and start pushing to offer and/or sell at least part of their ad space directly.
I’m also open to all kinds of ideas for collaboration, so feel free to contact me. I feel strongly that those who own their content should get more direct sales out of the circulating ad revenue.
Please let me know if you would be interested in cooperating with me in this venture!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 
A few weeks ago, I was reading a news article about YUDU. It sounded interesting, so I took a closer look.
YUDU is a free web service where you can upload your PDF file and have it converted into a digital magazine/publication, so that you can read it directly within your browser without downloading the actual PDF file. You may have seen similar readers used in the virtual versions of some of your favorite magazines.
It’s not just cool, it’s also free!
I have seen similar tools and services before, but this one is online and it’s free to use and publish! You simply upload your PDF file and then wait to get an email with the URL that will point directly to your new, virtual publication.
It creates a virtually identical copy of the publication where you can browse through pages with cool page-turn effects, zoom in to take a closer look, etc. It also converts texts like www.domain.com into clickable links, even if the original PDF did not have embedded URLs.
It will also help to save the forests, because it means using less paper.
Try this one and let me know what you think about YUDU.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite It’s a well known fact that direct advertising sales for any media will generate more ad income than adwords, tradedoubler, etc. To sell ads directly, you absolutely must have an ad rate card.
So for me, it is just amazing how many publications and sites don’t have any kind of ad rate card, ad formats, ad pricing or even a single “advertising” link for potential advertisers to contact them. There may be a cheap-looking “your ad here” announcement, and I guess that is better than nothing (at least, that is, if you want direct advertising to your site).
Some medium or bigger print publications may have rate cards, but mostly only in PDF format. Come on, it’s 2008! Web is leading the way. Now, when web is going from 2.0 to 3.0, print advertising sales tools are still way back in the 80s.
The Initial Idea
My initial thought for creating the rate cards directory was to do it for for smaller print publications like some local clubs, hobby magazines, newsletters, or school papers, but it does work for online media like websites and blogs as well. Most outlets that have some print publication will have websites and/or blogs, too.
Some people may think that advertisers are not interested in advertising directly in smaller publications, but that’s not the whole truth. Actually, smaller media publications have very targeted and highly loyal readers and that converts to good advertising opportunities.
Does the Size Matter?
Yes and no, but it goes both ways. When we think about advertisers, most of us immediately think of some big-name companies and forget small or really small and/or local companies that have a need for advertising too. Big advertisers can easily be interested in smaller publications if they can effortlessly find, select and buy from multiple smaller ones that, combined, provide access to bigger target groups.
Regardless of their size or needs, all advertisers appreciate a good ad rate card where they can easily and quickly see what your media is all about, what kind of advertising options they have, and what the prices are. They want to do this without any hassle. If they like what they see, they will contact you. But if they can’t see any of the information they’re looking for, they probably will not contact you at all. Think about your own behavior when you are buying something. What information do you look for when deciding whether you are interested in buying?
Now It’s Easier to Create Your Own Ad Rate Card
Someone who has never created an ad rate card, will have a hard time finding information on how it should look, what information it should contain, how to price the ads, and more. Having a “form to fill” will assist you in creating your ad rate card more easily.
Many other cool features have been built on top of these initial thoughts. I will upload posts about them later on.
That’s why the site was created. 
Hello all - We are developing a new online service at www.RateCards.net. Our goal with this service, is to increase print and online media’s visibility, increase advertising sales and lower the barrier for advertisers to contact publishers.
This new online service is also designed to help smaller media publishers create professional rate cards for their media, improve their visibility and create new advertising revenues.
As a basic feature, www.RateCards.net offers publishers and advertising sellers a comprehensive tool for creating rate cards for their media. For advertisers, www.RateCards.net offers a rate cards directory with advanced search features and a campaign assistant with easy contact tools for multiple media types.
Our service will also allow media services companies to create an online profile where they can present their services, previous work, and referrals for potential clients for free.
Future plans for ad rate cards directory
In the future, we plan to develop our service even further so that ad sales, ad content, approvals and other parts of the advertising process can be handled more effectively within the service. These new features will be planned and implemented based on users’ feedback about our services.
The basic functions of www.RateCards.net (rate card or profile creation, cards views, search, assistant, contact, etc.) are free for all users. In the future, some of the more comprehensive features may be fee-based.
At the moment, we are still in the development phase and are inviting selected contacts to participate in our public beta testing group
If you would like to participate in our beta testing group, please visit our registration page to get your own login details. We will request feedback on our service and features from those participating in our beta group. We may also ask those users to respond to a questionnaire about our service.
We want everyone to understand that our service is still in its beta version and is being developed continuously.
In this blog, we will give you updates on our developments and some insight for the reasons behind the idea..
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite This blog has just been set up. Planning my first post…
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite