Trying to monetize your hard crafted design or development blog or site is no mean feat. but why shouldn’t you be rewarded for the hours you spend crafting unique content for your visitors.
Over the years I’ve been ‘at the helm’ of a fair few web sites, some good, some bad but most returning revenue in some form.
I’m genuinely un-fussed as a visitor if I arrive at a site with tasteful advertisements tucked away in the sidebar. Even sites that are completely loaded with advertisements that have great content don’t particularly bother me.
Obviously I would consider myself a little more clued-up than an average visitor but then this post is directed at design or development blog owners looking to monetize their content.
How, when, where and why you should display advertisements on your design or development blog are decisions entirely down to you. My opinion on the subject is simple, if done tastefully and with the right motives your audience will respect the decision to monetize the content you’ve worked hard to bring them.
Below I’ve produced a write-up of each advertisement network or revenue source I’ve come across that are applicable to design or development resource and blog sites. With each write-up I’ll give you my experience with the network, what type of advertisements they offer, likeliness of being accepted and payout information that may help you get a better return from the network or revenue source.
Note: A few, if not, all of the links outgoing to networks and revenue sources from this post will be referal links. To those who are unaware, these links mean that if you go on start earning with the sites I’ve recommended I’ll receive a nice bonus from them myself for refering you. If you think this is unreasonable and I’m a greedy so and so then I’m sure you can find a way to the sites directly.
Sponsored Tweets
Type of ads : Tweets
An extremely interesting network especially for the designers and developers of the web. This network does exactly what it says on the tin. It allows to you sell sponsored tweets to advertisers. Heck! you don’t even need to have a web site to use Sponsored Tweets. They have a lot of celebrities on their books at present and the more followers you have on twitter, the better payouts you are likely to receive. The price per tweet is extremely good for this network. You will need to have 100 tweets, 100 followers and have an account over 60 days old to be publicized in the advertiser directory but you can still sign up if you don’t meet these requirements for possible direct offers. Highly recommended.
Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com
Type of ads : Commission based referrals
An ol’ cornerstone of the web, Amazon.com and the co.uk variant allow you to sign up to their associates program and promote products they have in stock for a percentage of any sale that is made from said promotion. Its quick and easy to get started with them and the acceptance criteria is very low. Where Amazon come in pretty handy for design and development web sites is their great range of books related to the subject of design and development. The referral fee per product varies slightly but it usually sits between 5 and 10% of the sold product value.
Peerfly.com
Type of ads : CPA
A personal favourite of mine – Peerfly are starting to gain a big reputation amongst web site owners. Their payment model maybe a little different from what most design and development blog and site owners are used too. With that said the potential rewards for your visitors and indeed yourself as the site owner are good. Peerfly are a Cost Per Action network which means that their advertisers will pay you when one of your visitors fulfill a predefined action on their web site. This can be a simple as one of your visitors entering their email address for a macbook competition (which is an offer available right now). Payouts vary depending on the types of offer but if your looking for a different type of ad network than the crowd Peerfly are very much recommended.
Google Adsense
Type of ads : CPC (mainly)
Google Adsense are second to none the in the advertisement network stakes. The acceptance criteria is also one that 99% of web sites should fulfill with ease. They offer a range of advertising types to help monetize your design or development sites but by far their most popular are the Cost Per Click adverts. Google Adsense have also recently added mobile phone specific advertisements and advertisements for feeds, which are perfect for design or development web sites with a big readership. Your earning power with Google Adsense will vary from page to page as it is completely dependant on which keywords Google find in each of your pages. All in all with the low acceptance barrier and not forgetting the highly customizable adverts Adsense is a good choice for any web design or development site. Google Adsense offer a variety of payment options.
Type of ads : Text Links
Text Link Ads are a great network I’ve used on a number of occasions. They allow you to drop a block of Javascript code into your pages and then they will broker for you in getting advertisers to purchase text links on these pages. The higher pagerank your web site has the better the going rate will be for your text link real estate. Page rank really is the key with this network to getting the best price for your advertisements. A nice bonus is the extremely usable interface that Text Link Ads provide for publishers, that not only allows you to switch between Advertiser or Publisher but also allows you to manage multiple web sites from one account. Payment options are cheque or paypal.
Type of ads : Inline Text Links
A different type of advertisement offered to any of the other networks featured in this post. inLinks allow you to sell individual words and sentences in your posts to advertisers. They allow a high level of customization and control over what you sell and what it looks like so the advertisements are less likely to make a pig’s ear of your valuable content. Used correctly inLinks can be a constant yet subtle source of income for your design or development blog. Payment is via Paypal or Cheque.
Buysellads.com
Type of ads : CPM
Buysellads.com are relatively new in comparison with some of the other networks listed here. They are responsible for some, if not most of the side image advertisements across design and development web sites. At the time of writing I’d take a punt and say they were the leaders in design and development blog and web site advertising. They have a very high standard of sites under their control and you may find it hard to become an accepted publisher if you are new or have low traffic numbers. Using their administration area you can designate specific ad areas that you would like to offer potential advertisers. Buysellads.com then act as a broker for setting up the relationship between yourself and the advertiser. They do take a slightly larger cut of your agreed price with any advertiser but are fast becoming the most reputable design and development advertising network.
Adbrite.com
Type of ads : CPC, CPM
Adbrite are a Buysellads.com alternative that do a very good job of selling advertisements for their members. Again the return for your site will be dependant on the size but if you need a network similar to Buysellads.com that doesn’t have as higher acceptance barrier then Adbrite will serve you well. Adbrite also have a wider range of advertising options such as Pay Per Click as opposed to the set time periods of Buysellads.com.
AdToll
Type of ads : CPC, CPM and more
Adtoll are seen as a viable alternative to Buysellads.com and there high acceptance standard. They are also similar to Adbrite. Site owners signing up to Adtoll can expect to be accepted 99% of the time but may find it harder to sell space on there site that they would on Buysellads.com. Payout rates will again depend on the size and popularity of your site. Adtoll offer a range of options for you as a site owner so head over now and take a look.
Pay Per Post
Type of ads : Pay Per Post
This is one more for the bloggers. Pay Per Post should be pretty self explanatory, you sign up and get paid to make postings on your blog that either review or link to a company or product. The payouts really do differ based on a number of factors such as pagerank and readership. Payments are made via Pay Pal and quite honestly I’ve had mixed experiences with Pay Per Post but would definitely recommend you give it a try.
If you have any experiences with the above networks or would like to suggest one of your own that would be useful to design or development web site owners please leave them in the comments.
CITuts
February 15th, 2010
Great Article. Thank for sharing and keep posting useful article.
