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What Advertisers Want: 6 steps to Attract Advertisers to Your Blog

This is a guest contribution from Brianne Bauer.

How do advertisers determine whether a blog is worth their marketing dollars? Promising blogs start out with must-have elements — interesting content, loyal readership, eye-catching design and regular updates.

But what’s missing? Here are six ways bloggers can become more attractive to advertisers.

money jumping from Laptop like blog advertising

Cross-Media Integration

Advertisers looks at many metrics when considering advertising on a blog — page views, daily visitors, average time on site, CPM, among others.

One of the growing metrics on an advertiser’s radar is a blog’s social media page. Advertisers not only look at how many followers a blog has but, more importantly, also look at the conversations being held on the blog’s page and social media channels. Can advertisers see themselves being a topic of conversation? Are open-ended questions being asked around a certain product?

When advertisers see a blog’s large following on Twitter, they see their ROI increasing. Incorporating sponsored social media posts (i.e. sponsored tweets) into your offerings will make a blog’s brand more lucrative. Outside of social media, consider other media. During the past five years, I’ve made more than 50 TV appearances that focused on blog content. As a lifestyle blogger this was a natural fit, and this is an attractive option to heighten exposure for your advertisers.

Get Advertisers Involved

Offer a variety of sponsorship opportunities other than banner ads. Polls, product spotlights and giveaways are great ways to help a blog’s aesthetic and give advertisers options to showcase their brand.

Some advertisers want to only participate in giveaways while others may only want to guest post. Guest posts are among the most common ways advertisers get involved with blogs. Guest posts are typically used by brands to build web traffic and to put readers in a purchasing frame of mind. Along with their content, guest posts typically have a byline and a link to the respective blog or website increasing their web stats.

Note that it is imperative to remain up front with readers and disclose that a special section is paid for.

Get Readers Interacting with Advertisers

This is arguably one of the most important components of a campaign. If, for example, a blogger reviews a storage product like Backup Genie review and then asks readers to weigh in with their opinions, ask them if they are already using it, plan on buying it or how it would make their lives better. Getting readers to interact with a brand is what advertisers are truly searching.

Know Your Blog Rank and How to Improve It

There are two leading ways advertisers use to measure a site’s performance: Google Page Rank and Alexa ranking. These ranking systems allow website owners to benchmark their websites and give advertisers metrics for evaluation.

Google Page Rank is an algorithm that ranks a site from 0 to 10 with a major emphasis on quality backlinks. It’s no surprise that if the Google bots don’t like something, like a broken backlink, a blog’s Page Rank score could be in jeopardy. As Page Rank (PR) is slow to update (PR is only updated every 3-4 months), it’s difficult to better your PR in a short amount of time.

If a blog is stagnating at a PR3 for a while, it could mean there are on-page issues that should be checked using Xenu. Alexa ranking is a free online directory that measures how many daily visitors a site receives, along with other traffic metrics and search analytics. Both are important to advertisers, but Page Rank is measured on your website reputation and Alexa is measured on website traffic.

Let Numbers Speak for Themselves

A media kit gives advertisers a quick glance of what they need to know. It should be updated regularly (and honestly) with the blog’s positioning, like this:

  • Google Page Rank: 4
  • MozRank: 5.25
  • July 2013 Visitors: 13,485
  • Pageview: 72,856
  • Average Time on Site: 2:02
  • Bounce Rate: 72.42

Bloggers should be forthcoming if certain stats don’t scream success. Share additional facts such as:

  • Strong niche following for Topic XYZ
  • Active in social circles (only share follower number if blog’s social media has more than 5,000 followers)
  • Blogs for two group blogs
  • Contributing blogger for major Topic XYZ website

Know Your Advertising Options

What better way to help build your brand than to hit the pavement and meet advertisers, share your inspiration for the blog and why you think they would benefit from advertising? But if being in the field isn’t your thing, let those who specialize in blog advertising help win new advertisers. Adsense and Amazon Affiliates are among the leaders but research to find a good fit for your blog.

It’s getting easier than ever to garner interest from new advertisers, but harder to weed out scammers.

The longevity of a blog is on based consistent, quality content (and ranking!) but bloggers monetize best when they deliver results to advertisers.

Brianne Bauer has garnered publicity for lifestyle brands like Paramount Pictures, and personalities such as Mariel Hemingway and Cheryl Tiegs. With a background in magazine publishing and corporate PR, she is now a freelance publicist and writer based in Minneapolis.

About Guest Blogger
This post was written by a guest contributor. Please see their details in the post above.
Comments
  1. Thanks for the suggestions, Brianne. I’ve been thinking about a media kit, so it’s very helpful to have an example of what info to include.

  2. Thanks for this article. I have a gadget blog that get’s 2k unique visitors a day but it’s not making a lot of money. I’m thinking of selling ad space or links on my popular pages.

    Curious though… how much do advertisers care about page rank? I get a lot of traffic but the site is still PR0. It probably should be PR3 by now but Google hasn’t issued a PR update in a while.

    • They won’t care much if your traffic is targeted for their products and services. An advertiser who has a new gadget to sell can be more than interested in advertising on your blog.

      About link selling, be careful with it. It’s not a viable strategy with all the algorithm updates on the horizon. If you can get your traffic up to 5000 uniques per day, you can look into Google Adsense for some decent income.

  3. I am lacking in bounce rate.. Its around 85… Also, you should add your blog to Sponsored Reviews so that advertisers in your niche can find you :)

  4. This was an outstanding article! Thank you for posting! <3

  5. Awesome Post! Thanks for the great tips! I have been looking for new ways to find out how to get different advertisers to buy space on my blogs! Cheers! Keep up the great work!

  6. Are advertisers really bothered about things like page rank? If they’re after traffic rather than a link then surely they’d be more interested in the number of visitors and how focused they are, or how good a match they are for their products and services?

    Wouldn’t that be all that mattered – how much money it earned them?

  7. great post sir thanks for sharing, getting more advertisers has being my aim even since i monetized my blog thanks for sharing i will surely work with these tips

  8. Hi Brianne,

    Great post.

    Totally agree with your points especially the cross-media platform.

    Thanks for sharing….

  9. As a consumer, my favourite form of advertising is sponsored posts where there is a great fit between the blogger and the product/service.

    As an advertiser, I don’t worry too much about PageRank, but I do keep tabs on traffic stats, and usually start with a trial period during which I can evaluate conversions. If I’m getting terrible clicks and conversions from a particular ad, the publisher and I can agree to part ways.

    I’ve signed year-long advertising contracts that have ended up being a waste of money and attention, both for me and for the publisher — wouldn’t they be happier publishing ads that are a better fit for their readers, if the rates are the same?

  10. I think this post has helped me a lot in understanding the facts that what advertisers are looking for and what exactly the want and How could we satisfy them and through which media. Awesome Post.

  11. Hey Brianne….nice post really helpful and full of information…..well I would say media kit plays an important role and i am surely gonna go for this one as I want good advertiser for my blog…so these are some tips which gonna help you certainly..

    Thanks for sharing
    Keep posting

  12. This is a great article – thanks very much. I like the idea of being open and up front and providing some key stats that will let advertisers know quickly how successful the blog is and also providing additional advertising options.

    My own blog isn’t there yet, but it’s all information i’ll be putting into practice in a few months time I hope!

  13. I slightly disagree–I don’t believe every blog needs to bother with advertising their page rank.

    My target market is not going to inquire about page rank and they have never inquired about page rank in my almost four years of blogging. I believe that that addition to a media kit really depends on what your subject is and who is reading it.

    A tech blog may need to share that information but a site like mine will do better to leave it off of there. If it is something your potential advertisers won’t understand or find confusing, I’d leave it off.

  14. Very useful infor here thanks for sharing, you have been bookmarked haha

  15. Hey Brianne, great post and nice ways to attract advertisers to blogs. I need more posts from you, hope you keep posting here. By the way Thanks..

  16. Hi Brianne,

    Good post.Totally agree with your points especially the cross-media platform.

    Thanks :)

  17. I totally agree with the point of Reach readers to interact with advertisers, readers certainly are at the helm of the blog and will be those who will make us grow, so we always take into account for my blogs. Excellent article!

  18. If you are planning on engaging directly with advertisers, then you should be trying to build up a relationship with them as early as possible (even if your blog is not currently at the stage where it is getting enough traffic or prestige for paid advertisers). By doing this you will be taken more seriously as a potential advertising partner, and when the time comes to strike up a proposition it will hopefully be successful.

  19. Advertisers majorly focus on Alexa Rank, Google PageRank, MozRank and Domain Authority in order of priority in my opinion. No matter how many traffic we get, how much quality readerbase our blog has, it doesn’t matter. So it is equally important to improve those metrics as well to attract advertisers.

  20. I absolutely agree with “Let Numbers Speak for Themselves” having been an advertiser myself I know that in the end after all the flash dies off, numbers is all you have left.

    I always try to keep it as black and white as possible to eliminate future surprises.

    Thanks for the Awesome post!

  21. good post, and thank you for your information

  22. Good post.Totally agree with your points especially the cross-media platform.Hope I will get much more usefull info in the near future

  23. nice article this is really helpfull for me

  24. Do you agree that the use of graphics and too many embellishments on the blog may also attract advertisers? I noticed that many bloggers use very colorful and interesting designs. However, some go beyond what is really attractive, I mean, some blog pages are bombarded with embellishments, yet they still generate the interest of advertisers.

  25. A good article that sheds light on a very common blogger problem–making money on your own blog site. The truth is, we all want to make money from our blog sites but oftentimes, we don’t know how to start. We think quality content is king but obviously, this isn’t enough to attract the advertisers and make good money.

    Letting the numbers speak for itself and knowing your ranks are two of the most important things I got from this article. Why? Simple. Because these are the two first things that any advertisers are looking for. Essentially, why would they advertise in a site that has low rankings and pag visits? So, it really makes sense that if you want to make money from your blog, make it visible because ads are meant to be seen anyway.

  26. Hi,

    Thanks for contributing such information.I have the great assurance that all this matter improve your ranking .

  27. Great post. I completely agree with the points you have made in getting advertisers involved. Holding giveaways has been my preferred choice. Thanks for this information.

  28. A lot of good information here.

    I just have one thought:

    With advertisers you’re only as good as your audience. If you’re audience doesn’t match the advertisers target, it doesn’t matter what you do. Seek out advertisers who identify with your niche. If you’ve built up a loyal following of their target audience you’ll have the leverage. In the information era, access to a loyal niche following is hard to come by.

    Build a list of businesses that match your audience. Then reach out to them and play them against each other. Remember, if you’ve done your job you have the leverage, not them.

  29. Thanks for all this helpful information. I agree that no matter how many visitors you can attract, your page rank and quality backlinks are very important.

  30. Nice read, thank you. I’ve been trying to find info about using images from Amazon, as an affiliate I have recently had my wrist slapped by a manufacturer for using the images of their product! But the images were on Amazon….how are you meant to advertise a product if you cannot use the images?

  31. when you use copyrighted images make sure and don’t forget to attribute them to their respective owners. don’t forget to include a disclaimer.

  32. We have recently been putting together a Media Kit for our portfolio of websites and have been playing to our strengths.. Our social reach is not very strong yet but we are growing every month.. Quality backlinks and god content is what makes the different. Also a good PR is nice, but there had not been an update since Feb!

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