As many of you already know, I am the Content Manager at InfoGenius. InfoGenius has several sites that make money purely off of ad revenue. I work directly with these sites on a regular basis and I am occassionally involved in the sale of ads. The sites that these ads appear on are Codango.com, Aspin.com, 411ASP.NET, and RemoteMethods.com.

I would like to provide you with some insights that have come to me while working on these sites and with InfoGenius. Some of the things I have to say may seem like common sense, but the fact is that implementing these things truly works. These tips are given in no specific order.

1) Respect the Customer

You wouldn’t believe how many people disrespect their customers. Now in this situation, you are probably thinking that it would be obvious to be as polite as possible to the advertisers. They are, after all, the ones who are paying you for the ad space. The important thing to realize about this is that the advertisers are only on your site because of your user base. If you receive an email from a user asking a question, never blow it off. It is very easy to view a single user as “not important” or “insignificant”. That would be a huge mistake! With today’s communication abilities, blowing someone off or being rude to someone can be leaked almost instantly. With things like Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, cell phones, email, forums, blogs, etc these altercations are told to everyone and made public quickly. My point is, the fact that you blew that person off will get out and then a much larger problem will be on your hands.

2) Keep Your Content Fresh

You will not be able to keep a consistent flow of users unless you give them a reason to keep returning to your site. Try to keep the most up to date information you have constantly available to your users. Also, moderate all the content that you are given. Some sites do well, and as they grow, they receive more information from their users than they are ready to handle. This causes some of them to slack on moderation, and inevitable leads to bad content on the site which results in less users.

3) Show Advertisers Why They Should Advertise on Your Site

Some people will strongly disagree with me on this, but you need to be able to give your advertisers a reason to advertise on your site. By this, I mean you need to publicly display to your advertisers what type of traffic your site produces. Your advertisers need to be able to see at a glance exactly how many people will be viewing their ads. Some examples of what I am talking about include:

These images, all taken from Codango.com except for the first one, are publicly available to everyone. Any potential advertiser that visits the site automatically sees how many people they can expect to see their product. This type of thing also gives a potential advertiser a better idea of how much an ad may cost. It will also weed out the lower end advertisers who may not be able to afford a spot on your site. This will save you time and money in the long run.

4) Only Advertise Products That Are Relevant To Your Users

The main reason I say to only provide ads that are relevant to your users is because it is what I would call a “win-win situation”. No one likes going to a site and having random banners spread all over the place cluttering up the content they are looking to access. Advertisers also do not like paying for a spot on your site if no one on the site actually wants to buy their product. For instance, it doesn’t make much sense logically for a meat company to advertise on a vegan site.

Relevant ads are much more effective and much less obtrusive. Your advertisers will appreciate better results, and your users will appreciate the better experience. There is no downside!

5) Keep Competition Among Advertisers

If your site is popular enough, you should have a multitude of advertisers lined up waiting to get their banner on your site. If this is true, this is great news! The most important thing to remember however, is to keep the competition among the advertisers strong. You should not sell an ad spot to any advertiser for an extended period of time. It is usually best to keep things on a per month basis. This makes all advertisers willing to keep their price on the ad spot high to avoid another advertiser from out bidding them and taking their spot on the site.

Advertising is all about exposure, and these companies know that. The best spots on your site should be fought for among several advertisers. If you allow someone to lock in an ad spot at a static price, then any additional traffic your site might receive essentially becomes useless. No one will be able to give you more money to buy the spot because it has already been sold. The upside to this however, is that if your site has a few low traffic periods, the advertiser is already locked into a price.

If you want my advice on this, do what your gut is telling you. I personally would not lock an advertiser in. The advertiser will not be happy about paying more money than a spot is worth if your site takes a hit, and you will not be happy about an ad spot being sold for cheaper than it is worth if your site has a traffic spike.

Final Thoughts

If there is only thing you take away from this entire article, please let it be that your most important customer is your user. Without your users, your site is worthless. Always try your best to accommodate them at all times. It may sometimes be difficult, in fact you will most likely run into a situation where it could be an advertiser against a user. Do not let the advertiser push the user around. Stand up for your user base and let them know that you appreciate them. Your users will respect you for making the right decision and most likely tell their friends about what happened. Their friends visit the site, your traffic goes up, and you get a larger advertiser looking to buy a spot on your site. In the end, it all works out for the best.

In closing, use your own judgement to make the best decisions for your site. There are no set rules that can be followed to run a successful site. It is up to you to determine your site’s future. Good luck!