How to sell advertising on your blog and NOT piss off your readers
Posted on 30. May, 2008 by Chad in Uncategorized
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.
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9 Responses to “How to sell advertising on your blog and NOT piss off your readers”
Neerav Bhatt
30. May, 2008
Hi Chad
What do you think of ads like these:
British Heart Fund anti junk food ad – http://creativezone.eyeblaster.com/?ItemId=3944
Mr Bean Movie – Mr Bean http://creativezone.eyeblaster.com/#ItemId=3808
Mitch
30. May, 2008
Very good points. I spent half an hour going through Clickbank products because most of them had either the entire screen taken over by an advertisement for some newsletter or you couldn’t get away from the page without two or three pop-ups trying to get that last sales pitch in. If I hate them, I figure anyone clicking on my site to go there would hate them. I can’t believe any of that stuff actually works, but it must since so many are doing it.
Aaronontheweb
30. May, 2008
All good points – the same goes for dropping affiliate links in your blog posts too. I always make it clear that if I do an Amazon affiliate link when I mention a book that I disclose it.
Mark Jaquith
30. May, 2008
Not a fan of interstitials eh? Those are the most eggregious example of page hijacking.
Cum Sa Vinzi Reclama pe Blog ? | Bloggerul
01. Jun, 2008
[...] inspired by: AdvertiseSpace [...]
Rudolf
10. Jun, 2008
I’ve only just recently started blogging and I’ve already seen some pretty bad takeovers.. with adds at the top, left, right and inbetween each post. I usually just end up closing the page because it annoys me so much.
Rudolf
Around the Web in Blogging | BlogOnExpo
23. Jun, 2008
[...] A few tips on how to sell advertising without upsetting readers – AdvertiseSpace [...]
banquet manager
29. Dec, 2008
I still looking for a real way to advertise that not only works but looks good.
http://soyouwanttobeabanquetmanager.blogspot.com
Bill Bartmann
01. Sep, 2009
This site rocks!