When should you start advertising on your blog?
This is a part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” blog series.
You can start advertising at any point it is completely up to you. The blog-o-sphere is divided on two trains of thought.
Advertise Now:
Advertising immediate on your blog from day #1. You can even do this before you even place content down on the site! There are, of course some things to consider here.
4 Questions to bear in mind:
1. By having advertisements immediately will you be able to make money from the off?
2. Will your community will appreciate the advertisements .
3. Will it save you time in terms of design because you know that you’re going to be advertising and want to set up the slots early to fill out your design and user experience?
4. Will the sidebar look too bare if I don’t fill it up with advertising space?
Advertise Later:
This strategy suggests that it is far better to advertise and put up banner advertisements later when the blog hits a certain point in terms of traffic and engagement.
Here are 4 key considerations:
1. Do you believe that you’ll convert and provide more opportunity for sales with a larger community base resulting in traffic.
2. Do you value earning your reader’s trust first and foremost? This will take time since generating credibility, rapport, and consistency are completely dependent on a long-standing relationship.
3. Have you decided that spending more time on creating content, building the site architecture, and strategy development is a much more vested approach to the growth long-term?
4. Do you want more time to think strategically about placements, your blog design, and ultimately the user experience before throwing ads on your sidebar like everyone else?
You ultimately believe that by spending more energy on your content, community, and strategy you’ll be in a better spot in the long run due to increased engagement, trust, and traffic.
What Do I Believe?
I choose to wait! With this strategy I could concentrate all my efforts on developing content, and cultivating the community. My efforts will eventually pay off when I do decide to advertise.
It also gives time to strategize the approach since I know my audience better after having engaged with them directly, which ultimately lets me provide even more strategic value to them.
That’s my goal: Provide exceptional value to my readers!
Finally, by not advertising it allows for more creative freedom to experiment, zero pressure.
If Not Now… Then When?
That simply depends on traffic, growth, levels of engagement, and ultimately your ability to sustain the necessary time required to bring high value to your advertisers. Don’t be fooled, it takes work to advertise. It’s not as set-it and forget-it as you might think (especially if you want repeat buyers).
Finally, if you’re new to the blogging game then you have a lot to learn about advertising in general! Better to soak up the information and make the best informed decision before shooting into the dark, right?
But, ultimately that it’s up to you and you can do it whenever you’d like or feel comfortable with!
This is a part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” blog series.
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