Hello, I'm thinking about commiting a big chunk of cash on promoting my community in a magazine. My community is about a year old with a slowly growing and active forum. I've not come even close to maxing out link purchases or directory purchases yet, but something in my gut really wants to go for print ads. I'm making about $600 per month off this particular site and to advertise in the magazine that mostly closely fits my demographic, I'll probably be spending exactly that. This $600 per month is just play money anyway, so the only risk is that Google drops me and every other ad serving system in the world rejects me (highly doubtful!). Anyway, my biggest questions is "Can I expect any PR increase from conventional advertising?". Thanks, Brandon Drury
I think we can all agree that there will be no "primary" effect on your PR from magazine advertising. That is - until Google integrates non-internet "links" into its PR formula and has physical bots crawling the world over looking for linkages back to your site. However, there could be secondary effects from people who see your ad and post about your community in their blog(s). Obviously, the most important part of running the ad is to get more people to your community - so I would concentrate on that and just hope for a bonus - but not expect one.
It depends on you niche.. definately you'll get online backlinks also but if it would be tech related then there are more chances to get more and more backlinks otherwise you'll get less. But how less or more? it depends on the pick of the magazine.
Sure. The people really giving the links are generaly webmasters. My site doesn''t really cater to webmasters. That's what I thought. Thanks, Brandon Drury
Often, print media publications will provide you with an online link from their site - which is always a good thing. Also, if your ad is catchy enough - or your website is unique enough, it wouldn't be surprising to find a couple of people actually writing about your ad online. However - not all of the results can be positive. I had advertised a business on the front page of the OC Register (a SoCal newspaper) to find out days later that I had caught the attention of a group of despicable people. Not exactly the desired effect - especially in the young days of link building for that particular site.
Not to intrude but could you elaborate just enough so that I understand the possible impact of "despicable people". ...Just trying to brace myself for what I may be in for (and may not anticipated). Brandon
The short answer is yes if the print ad drives enough traffic. Google's dirty little secret is that the Google Toolbar usage is part of your PageRank. (Think Alexa Toolbar which does the same thing). They use the toolbar as a "radar" tool. Try launching a new website domain and then use the Google toolbar to search for the domain a few times in one week. The site will be listed within a month on Google! Besides if the ad drives traffic, (that converts) who cares about PR?
In my case, the business was an ultrasound studio. I caught the attention of an anti-fetus/anti-baby online community. Prior to seeing the site in my referral logs I had no idea that kind of thing even existed, and after checking it out I was more than a little bit disturbed.
Sure. If magazines ads would make me a zillion dollars, I wouldn't care about search engine traffic. However, I'm going to guess that a conventional ad is not going to let me retire overnite, so I was also considering the longterm search engine benefits (if any) as well. I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to kill two birds with one stone. I'd like to brand my site in conventional advertising and hopefully also come out with a PR6 without significant link purchases. Well that's the best story I've heard today! Thank you for getting into the details! Brandon
Hard to say what the long term benefits would be for search. There are just too many variables(the publication, the ad itself, your site, the audience size and make up) I would guess however that it would be a very expensive test to find out if it works or not in the long term. Personally, I would try Pay per Click or Banner Ad networks first before branching to print pubs. Your audience (including websites that would link to you and increase your PR) are already online. You could use Google Adwords to run split test ads to optimize your positioning, languge etc. and once you have a consistent winner you could then go to print with it and be that much more ahead of the game. Good luck.