I didn't quite know where to post this question so it will be in two places. I started up a golf blog last December and it has grown to be one of the top golf blogs out there (whatever that means). The visits and hits are growing leaps and bounds month by month. At first it started out as a hobby. But then one day I was contacted by a MAJOR golf manufacturer who wanted to send me some equipment for review. I was shocked and said yes. Now I receive a ton of equipment and accessories each week and I'm doing a fair amount of reviews. Companies are now strongly requesting ad rates and packages. I have adsense and a couple of affiliates set up right now. So how does one set pricing? I did look at a couple of the other top golf blogs who have some small ads, but those are mostly affiliate types. I have no way of tracking clicks currently so I'm thinking a monthly rate. Or do you hire one of those PPC ad companies to do it for you?
Wow, you have under 1,000 pageviews per day and you are already attracting advertisers - well done! (I had a peak at your blog). As well as promoting pageviews, you may want to look at promoting the unique visitors. Another suggestion: find a way to collect with permission the contact details of your readers (get a company to do a give away comp or something like that)... you get the freebie and do the review, people opt in to go on your list (shared with the advertiser) and one of those who opt in wins the freebie too. The winner has to do a follow up review of their prize and sends in a picture too if possible of them with the prize). That way, the advertiser gets: two mentions and a list of people interested in their product who have given permission to be marketed to. You aggregate this growing list and haw a monthly newsletter, where you can again offer advertising space. If there is that much interest from advertisers, I'd look at something like php ads new to serve and report the stats for the ads. Advertisers pay more, the more distinct a market you can deliver them, so the more info valuable to your advertisers you can provide to profile your readers them more they will pay. I'm cheering for you, update us as to how it goes... and hope you liked my dual review / list idea.
Another idea if you keep getting lots of free golf stuff to review, auction it for charity (you only need so many golf clubs). You can get an extra income from signing readers up to ebay so they can bid and raise some money for causes your readers / you care about at the same time.
I am trying to sell ads on my site (not much luck) i have only been trying to sell for two days and my site isnt even up thoug
@bobby9101 Wait till your site is live and gets a describably amount and type of traffic, then you have something to offer potential advertisers.
I guess in the grand scheme of things that isn't a ton of action yet, but in the "golf blog" world I guess it is! Dominic thanks for the suggestions. I do like the idea of having a sponsor for some kind of contest and at the same time getting a contact list together. That is a great idea. Please elaborate a little on what you mean by "promoting page views" and "promoting unique visitors"... You mean a way of getting more individuals and more individual views of each page?
I mean in your stats table on the advertising page it reports pageviews. You may also want to report the unique visitors stats. How many people will my ad reach? How often will they be exposed to it?