One way to give your site a boost is to advertise. Chances are, you probably already know of some options to do so, but are they good ones? If you’re on a budget, what are the best places to advertise?
Personally, I don’t think globally buying AdSense PPC ads is the way to start. You want to target your ads a bit better than that. I have a few suggestions to try if you want to get the most for your investment.
Search Ads
Want to get a leg-up over your competitors? Try advertising in Google results.
Now unless you have a lot of money, you probably won’t be able to afford premium placing, which is quite pricey apparently, but you could buy some keyword-targetted pay-per-click ads to the left of the results. Not everyone looks at the ads, but more than enough do.
StumbleUpon Ads
StumbleUpon can bring you a truckload of good-quality traffic ordinarily. If you have some money, you can advertise with StumbleUpon. Their “ads” are simply paid stumbles. You choose some targeting options, and then pay $0.05 for every visit sent to the page you wish to advertise.
What could be better than ads that take people directly to your website?
You can set how many visitors you want per day, from 100 to 5000, the interest groups you want to target, location, age, etc..
125×125 Ads
I am a big believer in 125×125 ads. The small banners are tasteful and unobtrusive, and often advertise things of interest. They’re images, so they do more for you branding-wise than text ads even if a person doesn’t click.
This option requires a bit more research, but can pay-off well if you find a good site to advertise on. Compare statistics and prices to find a good deal.
You can make deals via email or phone with websites that offer 125×125 ad space, if you wish to advertise on blogs that sell ads themselves, or you could go through BuySellAds, a network for quality banner advertising. You can browse through their marketplace and find pricing and statistics all in one place, then pay to advertise on the site(s) you chose.
Whether you use either method or both, try to find sites that fit into your budget price-wise, and have decent traffic statistics. Then put together a nice-looking ad creative with 125×125 pixel dimensions before buying.
Advertising can bring-in some extra traffic, gain you subscribers, and simply get your website “out there” for people to see.
