Inspired in part by Brad Andersohn and Debbie Malones post, I want to draw attention to a potential marketing and monetization strategy for Individual or Team Blogs that most anyone can implement.
Brad discussed one of 5 potential ways to maximize your Team Blog: recruit 'Your Affiliates Who Contribute to Your Business and Success'. Debbie posted that how her hyper-local content about Lynchburg, VA was sending business to some other local businesses that she mentioned in her blog.
Often times, the obvious isn't such, so I'd like to point out an easy way to monetize and otherwise add value to your AR Individual and/or Team Blog: Recruit local businesses to contribute and/or advertise on your blog.
Think about it...you have The Juice, Google Juice, which is an online marketers Holy Grail. Hyper-local blogs are quickly replacing Newspapers as the go to source for local news, events and area service providers. Write a review about a local restaurant or 3rd party service provider, show them how they show up in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) and offer up an advertisement placement in your sidebar for $25, $50, $100 (?) a month. As your traffic increases so does the value of your online real estate.
With the pending release of 'Widgets' to our outside blogging platform, specifically the ability embed images in the sidebar, there is a great opportunity to sell that space to local advertisers, whether they be a service provider like a good plumber or simply a great restaurant that you want to share with others.
Couple of points...
Be selective. Don't indescriminantly slap up 30 advertisers; be thoughtful with who gets a spot on your site, they reflect on you. Preferably only allow businesses or people with whom you've had a positive experience with to participate. I'd personally limit the advertising space to 3-4 to begin with.
Be creative. People ignore vanilla or ugly ads. The ad should have a succinct call to action, offer a clear tangible benefit and look good.
Stay focused. The more you write about your local areas the more likely you are to rank for seach terms for that area. Concentrate your content and tag your posts appropriately.
This can be a great way to pay for the cost of the blog and subsidize your income, all for doing what you're already doing. Start generating a Social Media ROI!
Jeff, I'm not sure I'm sold on selling advertising on my blog. I guess I just need to figure out what amount of money would make it worth my while. I actually have a hyper local community blog on Ning.com http://poincianapeeps.com this was set up to possibly explore generating income through advertising but I haven't had time to do anything with it. My days just seem to be too short.
I also think we might hurt viewership if we advertise I guess I'm going to wait and see if it is accepted before I jump in.
Im not quite sold on the selling space just yet either....I don't wanna end up looking like a myspace page with 20 ads down the side
I like the idea !
Maybe even only 2 or 3 - but like you said - the select 2 or 3.
First step is Local reviews... I'm starting there...
Thanks for a new angle Jeff !
Cheers !
Sheldon
You're not going to get rich off of advertising on your blog, rather its a way to subsidize costs and build sticky traction. Also I would't put up more than 3-4 advertisers, and they should be very relevant to your business. Advertising from a company that makes T-Shirts or sells business cards isn't of much value for a conusmer. A local restaurant or hardware store offering a discount is.
Advertisers should add value to your blog in ways that bring consumers back as much as the nominal fee you may receive.
@Bryant- Cant pull your site up...and why oh why do you not have an AR outside blog? Expect an email from me :)
@Jeremy- avoid the MySpace look at all costs...keep any advertising down to a simple minimum.
@Terry- Its accepted:
http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/
http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/
http://agentgenius.com/
http://blownmortgage.com/
Granted, these blogs have alot of traction (traffic) but web advertisng is a proven, acceptable way to monetize your site(s), especially on the local level.
I made an open promise early on my site (thexbroker.com) not to take advertising because of how and what I wrote about and I really never expected much of an interest, and Googe AdWords just looked tacky to me (at the time)...wanted no 'conflict of interest' claims, but I wrote on a 'National' not local level. I regret this promise to a degree today, as i have at least one advertising proposal a week, some in excess of a few hundred dollars per month :(
Hmm. I would have expected a LOT more interest in this subject.
Jeff, I think you need to put a gold star on this because it didn't get what it needs.
Hi Jeff, sorry I'm late on commenting, thanks for the link to my post. I've been swamped with the real estate world but I will be looking in to outside blogs and advertising. Thanks again to the Activerain team, you are awesome!
Jeff - I am going to totally plagiarize your post here. I think you are one of those guys with great insight and this was just ahead its time. Thanks for the link love buddy, (never got the google alert) but now it's time to get this word out there and see what people think now. If I were a REALTOR, I'd want my affiliates and team not only adding to my Blog as contributors and authors, but as advertisers as well. Is there really even a difference anyway? :-))
Thanks Bradley, you know you're welcome to take as much as you like :-D