Make More Commissions With Contextual Ads

For most websites, contextual ads can give a new source of revenue with very little work. The following tips can help you to cash in on the full potential of your website traffic.

No matter how much your website is making for you right now, adding contextual ads to your pages can increase that amount considerably.

Nor does it matter (much) what your topic is. Since contextual ads are dynamically served, they change automatically with the page contents and let you monetize your content in real-time.

Contextual Ad Overview:

Contextual Advertising solutions automatically serve relevant ads to your page that match the keywords and/or content from the page.

Typically, a code snippet is placed on the page, and the code 'figures out' what the page is about and serves appropriate advertisements from a large database of advertisers.

This type of advertising works really well for website owners because the link titles are relevant to the content and they don't get ignored like most advertising.... plus, text links just generally get twice as many clicks as banners do.

For the advertiser this is good because your visitors are already interested in your content, his ads are relevant to that content, so he gets a better ROI.

Revenue is typically pay-per-click and split between the website owner and the contextual advertising program.

Your Ad Placement

Where you place your contextual ads on your pages will vary depending on the content and purpose of the page. Generally, above-the-fold and middle of the page does best.

Google has done a nice job of showing us where to place ads on our pages for the best click-through rate... the best part is that the information they provide applies to all ad providers, not just them.

Mix 'em up. Try placing different ad sizes in different places on the same page. For just one example: a 234x60 block at the top-right, a 120x60 down the side and a leaderboard (728x90) above the footer can dramatically increase your click-through per page.

Every provider has different rules about this; Google allows up to three ads per page while SearchFeed has no limit... whatever provider you use just make sure you comply with their terms.

Your Page Content

Fill your pages with content that focuses on a particular topic. Content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger contextual ads that closely match the content and are much more likely to interest your visitors.

Your Ad Appearance

How the ads look on your pages is just as important as the content of the ads themselves. You should try to match your website colors and fonts exactly and avoid the use of contrasting backgrounds or borders around your ads.

People are becoming more and more 'Selectively Blind' to anything that looks like an ad. You will get a much better click-through rate if the contextual ads are fully integrated into your website's 'look and feel' rather than having them look like banner ads.

For the same reason, you may want to use odd-sized ad formats and avoid using 'standard' banner sizes like 468x60 or 728x90.

Google has the 4- and 5-link ad units, SearchFeed codes can be edited for size and font, the Chitika eMiniMall ads certainly don't look like banners... and so on.

You may try placing small images next to your ads to attract the eyes - But Be Careful! For just one example: using arrows or anything else to entice visitors to click is not allowed by Google, and we are only allowed to label the Google ads as "sponsored links" or "advertisements".

Follow The Rules:

It is Vital  that you thoroughly understand the policies of the program in order to ensure compliance. For example, most providers do not allow us to display ads from different providers on the same page, some won't allow us to open the ad in a new page, some don't allow placement on search results pages... etc.

Despite what some 'gurus' say, you should resist the temptation to write unnecessary pages designed specifically to show contextual ads. Virtually all providers can see right through that trick and most of them don't like it. You could be penalized or banned.

Test, Test and Test Again:

Whatever ad network you decide to work with, use different sub-IDs to track the click-through rates for different placements. Google has 'Ad Channels' to make that simple, and other providers have similar setups.

Try different placements, different keywords, different ad sizes, etc... track your earnings and see what works best for your website.

Some Ad Providers:

This list if not intended to be complete. These are only the largest or most well-known, I've listed them to provide a representative cross-section of the types of providers you can work with and the ads they serve.

Google AdSense - The best known contextual ad provider, and if you can get accepted it's great, but it's not the only game in town.

Yahoo! Publisher Network - Still in BETA, but working well for many websites.

Ad Sonar - Still building it's select publisher list, but if they will take you as a partner it may be better than AdSense.

Search Feed - Match the ads to your page by keywords, easy to customize and not too harsh with the terms.

Chitika - Serves relevant ads in the form of interesting, interactive eMiniMalls.

AdBrite - Buy and sell text ads. Not exactly dynamic, but may work well for some types of websites.

Clicksor - This program underlines a selection of clickable text from your content or displays targeted contextual banners.

Using contextual advertising in addition to your other content is a good way to add to your income, but it's just that: an addition. It's not a replacement for your normal money-making efforts.

It may take a while, but once you have hit the winning formula of ad size and placement there simply isn't an easier way to make a little extra money off your traffic.

What makes it easy is the fact that your visitors don't have to spend a penny for you to make a commission.
  They Click, You Win!

To Your Success!
Tim

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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