Hit the Sweet Spot by Selling Post Targeted Links
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When I first started thinking about a city-based blog network I realized that one of my primary revenue sources would likely be link sales, since it would roughly mimic the Yellow Pages ads which were becoming gradually extinct.
What I really wanted was a way to efficiently offer text link ads on specific pages, since I know that they have the most benefit to the advertiser in terms of search engine optimization juice and for direct click-throughs.
To me, with Google discouraging site wide linking and link purchasing in general, it just made sense that to somehow get the links embedded into related content was going to be the future of link sales and search engine marketing.
Sweet Spot Ads
I started writing the specs to the system, click the pic to see my rough notes about how the system would work. I registered the domain name SweetSpotAds.com
and tried to get a couple friends on board to help out.
To make a long story short we all thought the project was a great idea but none of us had the time to get it done.
Text Link Ads To the Rescue
Today I received an announcement from Text Link Ads that they have implemented a system that is almost identical to my Sweet Spot Ads. It was obvious to me that they are the ones who would stand the best chance of pulling it off since they already had a large inventory of link buyers, which would have been a big struggle for me to build up.
Their system allows you to buy and sell post level ads.
Each Post Level TLA will:
- Be exclusive to one Advertiser.
- Allow Advertisers to have a full 80 character title and 150 letter description.
- Be positioned directly at the end of top posts making it ideal for click throughs.
- Each ad will be on a single page only.
Despite the fact that I may have missed out a chance to bring a killer idea to market, I’m very excited about this news. I think that this is the future of link buying and selling and I’m sure someone is already working on a WordPress plugin to allow bloggers to sell ads on their own posts without too much maintenance work.
I feel your pain. Great idea + no time = other people get paid. Happens to me sometimes, and it sure sucks. Of course, you have to devote your time to something, and there’s no telling what will and won’t succeed until you do it.
Jonno,
Sorry for being a bit naive or if I am wrong, but how is TextLinkAds that much different than AS? It still seems like a middle man and the links on your sites aren’t from your own customers?
-J
@J, it’s not naive…although it does sound like you may have drank a bit too much of JBs Kool-Aid
Certainly the ideal is to control your own customers, but given the costs (in time and money) of developing systems to manage the customers and the costs of finding and recruiting those customers, WHILE you are trying to develop a resource to attract eyeballs to sell to those customers, it may be a better business decision, at least temporarily or with a certain percentage of your visitors, to go for what is easiest and focus on creating your business and having some revenue.
AdSense and selling text link ads allow me to test the market easily. Once I know the market is profitable, it is not hard to start climbing the food chain and gain control of the customers. In fact since I have begun using TLA most of the link sales that I’ve done are private, but TLA helped me establish the price and know that my site was valuable real estate for advertisers.
@Leroy…no pain here. I’m actually very glad they did it. I don’t believe in the expression “no time” (or at least I’m training myself to let go of using it). Time is finite, therefore you cannot have more or less of it; the issue is priorities. I made a conscious decision that this project was not a high priority for me. I actually hoped someone else would do it, so in a way I was able to manifest exactly what I wanted; a key system for my blog network for zero upfront cost.
I’m not dogging TextLinkAds, it was more for clarification.
Honestly it wasn’t JB Kool-Aid it was your own brand
-J
Hey J, Just a warning, I’ve driven more than a few people crazy by changing my direction on things
So drink my Kool-Aid with a grain of salt!
I guess I like to stay open to see both sides of the picture and I usually find out that taking a strong stance makes for good discussion, but there is almost always an opposite point of view that is true, or at least considering.