Selling ad space tips

[film2240]

Hi,
I'm looking to sell ad space on my blog.I'm looking for some quick tips/gauge interest from people who may wish to advertise.There is a separate section dedicated for Ads so that the rest of the blogs content isn't in the way basically plus the ads won't annoy my readers.I'm wondering like,whats the going rate for the various ad types/sizes (standard,large and very large known as premium on there) that I can sell these for?

The ads will be hosted here:http://film2240.wordpress.com/ads/
I need help from people to make sure that:
1.The TOS is clear and fair (may still need some tweaking)
2.The pricing is reasonable in GBP (as I'm based in UK) equivalent for the ad slots.(I need it to be enough to help me fund impovements for the blog and to make this worth my time without being excessive)
3.How payment should be handled. (I'm thinking a different BTC address for each ad slot tier,so 3 in total)
4.How the customer can reach me for putting up the ads and that links work properly (use this forums PM)
5.How transactions should be handled in case of a dispute (again use this forums PM or twitter)

The plan is for me to be contacted for payment,then I recieve the image and links for the ad and I put it up on my blog.Cuts out the middle man this way.This feature is still under development.Once prices and TOS (I have to follow wordpress.com rules as well) are sorted out,this will be ready for the public.

All comments (postive/otherwise) and constructive criticism will be helpful.
Thanks :-)

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[Coinabul]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

[film2240]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

I can certainly mention what I write about on the blog but I'm not too sure how popular is with the readers and how many I have.Page views are unknown for me as I'm not sure how to find that out.

Content seems to range from:film works,personal galleries,game/gadget reviews,misc and random content (bitcoin stuff is a recent addition). I wonder if a person pays a 1 off fee for ad space or pays me based on popularity as I'd prefer a one off fee to simplify things for me as I'm uncertain about the popularity of the blog.

thanks for the tip though.

[DeathAndTaxes]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

I can certainly mention what I write about on the blog but I'm not too sure how popular is with the readers and how many I have.Page views are unknown for me as I'm not sure how to find that out.

Content seems to range from:film works,personal galleries,game/gadget reviews,misc and random content (bitcoin stuff is a recent addition). I wonder if a person pays a 1 off fee for ad space or pays me based on popularity as I'd prefer a one off fee to simplify things for me as I'm uncertain about the popularity of the blog.

thanks for the tip though.

Then I would forget about ads.  You are getting horse before the cart.  Advertisers want a massive amount of repeat traffic.  Sounds like you have none or negligble.  The value of that is negligible.

Work on writing something people find valuable, increasing traffic, and getting software to track your traffic.  Then when (more likely if) you ever get decent traffic you can think about advertising.

http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/04/07/5-factors-that-determine-your-advertising-cpm-rates/

Website advertising is very cheap.  Rates tend to be $1 CPM ($1 for 1000 views of an ad).  Pay per click tends to work out to far less than that.  So if hypothetically 100 people visit your blog a month even if someone was interested (which unless it is targeted they won't be) you are talking about $0.10 in revenue.


Build a good website FIRST then look to monetize it. 

[film2240]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

I can certainly mention what I write about on the blog but I'm not too sure how popular is with the readers and how many I have.Page views are unknown for me as I'm not sure how to find that out.

Content seems to range from:film works,personal galleries,game/gadget reviews,misc and random content (bitcoin stuff is a recent addition). I wonder if a person pays a 1 off fee for ad space or pays me based on popularity as I'd prefer a one off fee to simplify things for me as I'm uncertain about the popularity of the blog.

thanks for the tip though.

Then I would forget about ads.  You are getting horse before the cart.  Advertisers want a massive amount of repeat traffic.  Sounds like you have none or negligble.  The value of that is negligible.

Work on writing something people find valuable, increasing traffic, and getting software to track your traffic.  Then when (more likely if) you ever get decent traffic you can think about advertising.

http://andrewchenblog.com/2008/04/07/5-factors-that-determine-your-advertising-cpm-rates/

Website advertising is very cheap.  Rates tend to be $1 CPM ($1 for 1000 views of an ad).  Pay per click tends to work out to far less than that.  So if hypothetically 100 people visit your blog a month even if someone was interested (which unless it is targeted they won't be) you are talking about $0.10 in revenue.


Build a good website FIRST then look to monetize it.  

I've always had issues with having a popular website.I've made lots of them for the past few years and not much luck I'm afraid.I discovered that the only thing I'm good at is being moderately good at filmmaking/game playing.Website development/good article writing has never been a strength for me (although I'm still working on those).When i heard that any website could be monetized,I was happy and jumped on board but then no payment.BTC made web monetizing easy for me finally but seems that the lack of interest issue was never solved on my sites.

Now I don't know what to think about anything I create on the web/or of BTC in general.BTC made payment much simpler for me to accept.I just don't understand these things anymore.I just wanted to sell one off ads to boost my ratings and fund improvements to the site.Maybe lowering prices may help.I think that lowering prices will be much easier for me.I could use the help of someone who can review the content on my site and help me make it better for people via PM or on here,as I'm at a loss of what to do now.

I guess the best thing is never give up.

UPDATE:I've discounted all ad space slots by 50%.(offer expires 5/1/2012)

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

I can certainly mention what I write about on the blog but I'm not too sure how popular is with the readers and how many I have.Page views are unknown for me as I'm not sure how to find that out.

Sign up for a Google Analytics account. It will tell you everything you need to know about your readers and traffic. Its free.

[film2240]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

I can certainly mention what I write about on the blog but I'm not too sure how popular is with the readers and how many I have.Page views are unknown for me as I'm not sure how to find that out.

Sign up for a Google Analytics account. It will tell you everything you need to know about your readers and traffic. Its free.

Signed up to it.Waiting for results now.just found that wordpress.com has a dashboard containing,no of viewer,what links are followed and on what days,weeks,months,e.tc.It also ranks the most popular articles of the day in question.

I'm thinking that more diverse content is the way to go like the entry I linked to from my blog about Ron Paul can win the election (possibly) as quite a few people on here think of him highly (and I don't blame them,I happen to support him this time.)

Will cutting prices help sell ad space? As I just slashed 50% off asking price (one off fee)

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

You should state how many readers you have, pageviews, and what exactly you write about on the blog.

I can certainly mention what I write about on the blog but I'm not too sure how popular is with the readers and how many I have.Page views are unknown for me as I'm not sure how to find that out.

Sign up for a Google Analytics account. It will tell you everything you need to know about your readers and traffic. Its free.

Signed up to it.Waiting for results now.just found that wordpress.com has a dashboard containing,no of viewer,what links are followed and on what days,weeks,months,e.tc.It also ranks the most popular articles of the day in question.

I'm thinking that more diverse content is the way to go like the entry I linked to from my blog about Ron Paul can win the election (possibly) as quite a few people on here think of him highly (and I don't blame them,I happen to support him this time.)

Will cutting prices help sell ad space? As I just slashed 50% off asking price (one off fee)

Let me put this bluntly, you gotta get some readers first before you can sell ads.
As someone said earlier, dont buy the cart before the horse

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I saw your problem(s) before I even clicked the link which, by the way, is unclickable. (when I did get to your site, you have other links that are also unclickable)

The ads will be hosted here:http://film2240.wordpress.com/ads/

There are two problems I see right off with the above. First, your name--film2240. It may mean a lot to you, but nothing to the average viewer. I'm not saying that it's not brandable, but chances are it's not yet, if it were, it would take years to reach that level of success. Secondly, is that your blog is hosted on wordpress.com oppose to having your own domain name--film2240--self-hosted. Wordpress is known for shutting down blogs quicker that PayPal freezing accounts.

Now lets talk about your site. The first thing I see is snow falling across the page. No one, not even a single advertiser worth their salt, is going to take your site seriously. Then you have the spelling and grammar issue to contend with. You could have the best blog idea in the world, but you'll never reach that 1,000+ readership if nobody reads about your ideas then, most importantly, passes the links of your posts onward. I'll offer up a close-to-home example to help drive that point home. My brother-in-law is considered one of the best hand tooled leather producers in America, if not the world. Yet his eBay store sucks! His website sucks! His command of the English language...wait for it...SUCKS! If he started from scratch with his excellent art work and tried to pedal it via a blog, website, eBay, Etsy, etc., he would starve to death within the first month. Now, you may be the best in the world at what you do, but how you're getting other people excited about it is another horse of a different color than the cart its trying to push.

Therefore, if you self-hosted film2240.com, your attempts would still fail. That was the good news. Here's the bad news. Even if you enjoyed a grand readership, you still couldn't get ad sponsorship because of this: http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
couple, once again, with sponsors being well aware that a blog posted on wordpress.com can be shut down at any time.

Please don't consider me a jerk for offering up this advice. In not way was I trying to diss your efforts. I just wanted to help. Perhaps, others reading my post will correct me if I've error on anything. We want to continue to give this lad the best advice as possible.

~Bruno~

[film2240]

Thanks for the tips.Since I read the link that mentions wordpress.com not allowing ads.I'm in the process of looking at using other free hosts that allow ads for their forums/blogs or self hosting my blog to get around the restriction.Only question is where should I host it (in a country that has more favourable laws that protect it from arbritary shutdowns or data protection breaches)?

Only thing is, is it cheaper to buy a low power computer (as in low energy use) and host this myself to dodge the monthly hosting and transfer fees or is it better to just pay those fees and not have to buy a PC just for hosting a blog?

[BadBear]

Just get shared hosting, the one I'm using even autoinstalls wordpress for you so all you have to do is log into your site and start posting.  Trying to run your own server will result in way more headache than the money you will save.   

[film2240]

Just get shared hosting, the one I'm using even autoinstalls wordpress for you so all you have to do is log into your site and start posting.  Trying to run your own server will result in way more headache than the money you will save.   

Yep.Shared hosting sounds like it's a lot cheaper and easier.What host do you use badbear since I need that auto install of wordpress feature? Once I'm all setup,how can I transfer my current wordpress.cm blog or export it's contents onto the newly created instance of wordpress on the shared host?

Thanks

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Just get shared hosting, the one I'm using even autoinstalls wordpress for you so all you have to do is log into your site and start posting.  Trying to run your own server will result in way more headache than the money you will save.   

Yep.Shared hosting sounds like it's a lot cheaper and easier.What host do you use badbear since I need that auto install of wordpress feature? Once I'm all setup,how can I transfer my current wordpress.cm blog or export it's contents onto the newly created instance of wordpress on the shared host?

Thanks

I suggest HostGator.

[theymos]

Yep.Shared hosting sounds like it's a lot cheaper and easier.What host do you use badbear since I need that auto install of wordpress feature?

http://byethost.com/index.php/free-hosting

[BadBear]

Can't recommend one since the one I'm using I got from a reseller friend at a great deal(can't say I'd pay full price for it, not that great).