with one of my hobby portal websites, I was pleasantly suprised when the first cheques started to arrive in the mail.
Since those early days I've been a firm believer that context advertising is the way of the future, and convinced that it can work for any business.Online advertising has come a long way since banner affiliate programs. These days, some webmasters are happy with a few kick-backs from ads to help offset their website hosting costs, but those who are more savvy businesses are really starting to go for the kill and making context advertising a key to their revenue strategy. The 2002 film Minority Report wasn't the best movie that I have seen, but one thing that impressed me was the concept of the main character walking down the street seeing and hearing holographic advertisements that were personalised and relevant to his current interests. Who knows, maybe that is where we are someday headed - in the meantime, the power of context advertising is already here.I was speaking to a client only a few days ago about one of his friends who started blogging with a smaller business and is now attracting more revenue, in the realms of millions of visits and hundreds of dollars a day simply in advertising revenue. This sort of thing is helping to breed the next generation of e-entrepeneur and for some, all it takes is some intellectual property and enthusiasm. The barrier to entry for this business model may have lowered, but there is now also a huge potential for established businesses to benefit.Google Adwords has been out for some time, and an Adwords campaign has become an essential tool in the marketing arsenal of most businesses. Many who got in early generated a lot of business by capitalising on context sensitive results in Google searches with highly targeted and qualified online marketing campaigns. With saturation, Adwords has become less effective over time and other competing products, such as Yahoo Search Marketing have emerged.Adsense has since provided webmasters with a means of serving these ads to a more targeted audience, by displaying ads that are relevant to the content on the pages of their websites. As blogging has taken off, people have started to realise that they could leverage their content, information and knowledge by serving up ads that relate directly to the ideas they put forward. For example, if you have an article on your website with some advice about sports injuries, in this case, the ads which Adsense might serve up would be related to the article and could include local Physios, sports clubs, doctors and the like. There is also Adsense for search, which uses a Google search to provide keyword searching of your site, but returns relevant ads with the search results. This technique has an even higher success rate, as people are actively searching for the sort of things that the ads will offer, and they are less likely to be in the buying mode for your own products or services. Adsense is free to join and the number of advertisers vying for space is continually growing. In an ideal world, you would start getting paid straight away and laugh all the way to the bank.But as with everything in business, the road is not paved in gold, with context advertising there are challenges that you need to overcome to reach your goal. Executing an effective strategy requires careful planning.Context advertising and Adsense is essentially about advertising other companies, and this is not something that every business manager or marketer is naturally happy to do. But thinking outside of the square can not only spawn a whole new lucrative enterprise for yourself, but may even help to grow the entire market, simply by providing information.Like many affiliate advertising programs, Google only pays out once you reach a certain limit. At the moment it is around $100 US dollars (which with our strong Aussie dollar is pretty close to at the moment). Depending on how much traffic your site generates, it may take you a few days, a few months or even a few years to reap the rewards. Most businesses just struggle to get people to visit their site.So you really either need to consider things like search engine optimisation (SEO) very seriously or start to think outside of the square.Almost every business has something to offer, trade skills and secrets, whether you think so or not. They key is to determine what it is and to use it to market your brand and stay a step ahead of your competition. It is the instinct of most CEOs and business managers is to keep their cards close to their chest. This has worked in business for hundreds of years. The first step to is to let go of this mentality and embrace the new models for marketing that the latest version of the World Wide Web, Web 2.0 offers. Sometimes by keeping your smarts under wraps too much can cause you to become too self-involved and lose sight of the bigger picture and your customers. By putting some of your key cards on the table, you can get a better perspective of where you stand in your competitive environment and learn to play the game better. But there is no gamble or risk if you do your homework.In the online space, there are ways to increase the size of your market by blurring the boundaries of your core business. Some businesses are ideal for running context advertising campaigns. Others need a little more thought and strategy.There are other things about context advertising which you need to be careful and aware of. Google has occasionally served up ads for sites which are offensive. There are also opportunities for scams which exists though we don't advocate. Examples of this include "zombie" sites, which simply "borrow" content from elsewhere and click fraud.I'll start by showing you how to start making some sense out of the online advertising opportunities that may be staring you in the face, and introduce the concept of "niche blogging".Heres are some of the first things that I ask myself and perhaps you should also be asking.Do I offer a non-competitive service ? If so, you are an ideal for an Adsense campaign. For example, many associations capture a specific audience and offer journals and publications which are targeted at them. Many businesses may not be in a captive market, but may still offer a non-competitive service. Consider adding context ads to these pages.Am I missing an opportunity in a non-traditional market ? There may be opportunities that are very different to your core business but utilise your strengths and expertise, for example, if you focus on a specific topic or information that might be of particular interest to both yourself and other people in yours or a related industry. For example one idea is to create a blog or website. You don't have to brand it, just identify an audience and provide information in such a way that you can use it to your business advantage. For example, Datalink might create a site explaining the technical steps on how to host a website, which might otherwise be doing us out of potential hosting customers, but if it is on its own site and is aimed at a different audience, such as other web hosts, could give a strategic advantage in a market that we don't usually service. The right approach and angle means that you give away the occasional expert knowledge or trade secret and leverage it without effecting your bread and butter customers.Is my content targeting the right audience for my ad to be effective ? Consider the types of pages where the ads might appear and the type of specific keywords in them. To increase the relevance you may want to increase the density and frequency of keywords, but never to the extent that the reader loses touch with your article. How do I generate the traffic required to make a go of it ?As mentioned earlier, search engine optimisation and keyword techniques play a part, but it mostly comes down the the value of the content that you offer to your target audience. Some tips to increase your SEO are to make sure that your headlines have both keywords, keyphrases and are catchy and if your information supports RSS, you can share your content with other sites to get even better results. In the end the more targeted and desirable the information is, the more interest and therefore money you will make. Find something with bulk appeal and/or a niche market and you'll have the most success.Do I have space on my web design for ads, and will it effect its appeal ? You need to consider this carefully, because ads will only look "right" when there is space dedicated to them. Make sure you choose the right ad units for the available space, if you don't you may risk "breaking" the site design. There are also variations of ad units, some are more "in your face" than others, but generally as they are links, they shouldn't compromise your design if done properly. Avoid mixing them with graphical banners, they can contribute to a messy, ad-hoc appearance. Above all, consider the previous questions and answers and you'll be able to determine whether an Adsense type campaign is right for you.Where can I get advice ?At Datalink we have almost a decade of e-marketing experience to draw from. We do a lot more than just help businesses to set up a Google Adsense campaigns. We analyse their business models to assess whether it is the right technology for them. We find other complementing opportunities and technologies and combine them to get the best results.
Since those early days I've been a firm believer that context advertising is the way of the future, and convinced that it can work for any business.Online advertising has come a long way since banner affiliate programs. These days, some webmasters are happy with a few kick-backs from ads to help offset their website hosting costs, but those who are more savvy businesses are really starting to go for the kill and making context advertising a key to their revenue strategy. The 2002 film Minority Report wasn't the best movie that I have seen, but one thing that impressed me was the concept of the main character walking down the street seeing and hearing holographic advertisements that were personalised and relevant to his current interests. Who knows, maybe that is where we are someday headed - in the meantime, the power of context advertising is already here.I was speaking to a client only a few days ago about one of his friends who started blogging with a smaller business and is now attracting more revenue, in the realms of millions of visits and hundreds of dollars a day simply in advertising revenue. This sort of thing is helping to breed the next generation of e-entrepeneur and for some, all it takes is some intellectual property and enthusiasm. The barrier to entry for this business model may have lowered, but there is now also a huge potential for established businesses to benefit.Google Adwords has been out for some time, and an Adwords campaign has become an essential tool in the marketing arsenal of most businesses. Many who got in early generated a lot of business by capitalising on context sensitive results in Google searches with highly targeted and qualified online marketing campaigns. With saturation, Adwords has become less effective over time and other competing products, such as Yahoo Search Marketing have emerged.Adsense has since provided webmasters with a means of serving these ads to a more targeted audience, by displaying ads that are relevant to the content on the pages of their websites. As blogging has taken off, people have started to realise that they could leverage their content, information and knowledge by serving up ads that relate directly to the ideas they put forward. For example, if you have an article on your website with some advice about sports injuries, in this case, the ads which Adsense might serve up would be related to the article and could include local Physios, sports clubs, doctors and the like. There is also Adsense for search, which uses a Google search to provide keyword searching of your site, but returns relevant ads with the search results. This technique has an even higher success rate, as people are actively searching for the sort of things that the ads will offer, and they are less likely to be in the buying mode for your own products or services. Adsense is free to join and the number of advertisers vying for space is continually growing. In an ideal world, you would start getting paid straight away and laugh all the way to the bank.But as with everything in business, the road is not paved in gold, with context advertising there are challenges that you need to overcome to reach your goal. Executing an effective strategy requires careful planning.Context advertising and Adsense is essentially about advertising other companies, and this is not something that every business manager or marketer is naturally happy to do. But thinking outside of the square can not only spawn a whole new lucrative enterprise for yourself, but may even help to grow the entire market, simply by providing information.Like many affiliate advertising programs, Google only pays out once you reach a certain limit. At the moment it is around $100 US dollars (which with our strong Aussie dollar is pretty close to at the moment). Depending on how much traffic your site generates, it may take you a few days, a few months or even a few years to reap the rewards. Most businesses just struggle to get people to visit their site.So you really either need to consider things like search engine optimisation (SEO) very seriously or start to think outside of the square.Almost every business has something to offer, trade skills and secrets, whether you think so or not. They key is to determine what it is and to use it to market your brand and stay a step ahead of your competition. It is the instinct of most CEOs and business managers is to keep their cards close to their chest. This has worked in business for hundreds of years. The first step to is to let go of this mentality and embrace the new models for marketing that the latest version of the World Wide Web, Web 2.0 offers. Sometimes by keeping your smarts under wraps too much can cause you to become too self-involved and lose sight of the bigger picture and your customers. By putting some of your key cards on the table, you can get a better perspective of where you stand in your competitive environment and learn to play the game better. But there is no gamble or risk if you do your homework.In the online space, there are ways to increase the size of your market by blurring the boundaries of your core business. Some businesses are ideal for running context advertising campaigns. Others need a little more thought and strategy.There are other things about context advertising which you need to be careful and aware of. Google has occasionally served up ads for sites which are offensive. There are also opportunities for scams which exists though we don't advocate. Examples of this include "zombie" sites, which simply "borrow" content from elsewhere and click fraud.I'll start by showing you how to start making some sense out of the online advertising opportunities that may be staring you in the face, and introduce the concept of "niche blogging".Heres are some of the first things that I ask myself and perhaps you should also be asking.Do I offer a non-competitive service ? If so, you are an ideal for an Adsense campaign. For example, many associations capture a specific audience and offer journals and publications which are targeted at them. Many businesses may not be in a captive market, but may still offer a non-competitive service. Consider adding context ads to these pages.Am I missing an opportunity in a non-traditional market ? There may be opportunities that are very different to your core business but utilise your strengths and expertise, for example, if you focus on a specific topic or information that might be of particular interest to both yourself and other people in yours or a related industry. For example one idea is to create a blog or website. You don't have to brand it, just identify an audience and provide information in such a way that you can use it to your business advantage. For example, Datalink might create a site explaining the technical steps on how to host a website, which might otherwise be doing us out of potential hosting customers, but if it is on its own site and is aimed at a different audience, such as other web hosts, could give a strategic advantage in a market that we don't usually service. The right approach and angle means that you give away the occasional expert knowledge or trade secret and leverage it without effecting your bread and butter customers.Is my content targeting the right audience for my ad to be effective ? Consider the types of pages where the ads might appear and the type of specific keywords in them. To increase the relevance you may want to increase the density and frequency of keywords, but never to the extent that the reader loses touch with your article. How do I generate the traffic required to make a go of it ?As mentioned earlier, search engine optimisation and keyword techniques play a part, but it mostly comes down the the value of the content that you offer to your target audience. Some tips to increase your SEO are to make sure that your headlines have both keywords, keyphrases and are catchy and if your information supports RSS, you can share your content with other sites to get even better results. In the end the more targeted and desirable the information is, the more interest and therefore money you will make. Find something with bulk appeal and/or a niche market and you'll have the most success.Do I have space on my web design for ads, and will it effect its appeal ? You need to consider this carefully, because ads will only look "right" when there is space dedicated to them. Make sure you choose the right ad units for the available space, if you don't you may risk "breaking" the site design. There are also variations of ad units, some are more "in your face" than others, but generally as they are links, they shouldn't compromise your design if done properly. Avoid mixing them with graphical banners, they can contribute to a messy, ad-hoc appearance. Above all, consider the previous questions and answers and you'll be able to determine whether an Adsense type campaign is right for you.Where can I get advice ?At Datalink we have almost a decade of e-marketing experience to draw from. We do a lot more than just help businesses to set up a Google Adsense campaigns. We analyse their business models to assess whether it is the right technology for them. We find other complementing opportunities and technologies and combine them to get the best results.
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