Contextual advertising is a form of advertising where instead of purchasing ad space on a specific website, you add money to an account and set up some ads based on keywords, and the service attempts to place those ads on the most relevant sites who have agreed to publish with them.
Google AdWords is the dominant player in the contextual advertising market. They have the most advertisers, and the most reach amongst publishers. While it's always worth checking out the competition, AdWords is most likely going to be your best bet.
The danger with popular services is saturation, and it may be that too many advertisers are already going for the keywords you want to bid on, in which case another service may work better for you. It'll have less reach but at least you won't be paying a dollar or more per click. But, there are still plenty of affordable keywords with AdWords.
AdWords is the part of Google's business that deals with advertisers. Advertisers create ads and bid to have them show up near certain keywords through this service. AdSense is the arm that deals with publishers, allowing them to implement the code that dynamically displays the ad and keep up to date with how much they're earning.
The most important thing you can do is proper keyword, no matter which service you go with. But regardless of the keywords you use to rank in the search engines, which keywords have the right balance of low cost, high visibility, and limited competition?
There are so many variations on the keywords that can be used in just about any field, so keyword research can take a lot of time. Google offers a tool that makes the job easier.
Simply enter a few keywords or phrases pertinent to your site's topic, and you'll be given a list of related keywords, the search volume they attracted through Google, and the amount of advertiser competition. Advertiser competition pushes up the cost to bid on the keywords, and it makes it harder to be seen at all. The lower the competition, the better. Search volume, essentially tells you how many people searched for a keyword in a specified time period. The higher this is, the better.
The easiest way to ensure that your ad money is spent on reputable sites that reach the audience you'd like to have is to purchase your ads directly. Depending on the size of the site, this method can get pretty pricy. A month of advertising ranges from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and rarely will you see a bargain in the two-digit range.
But it does provide you with some certainty that the ads aren't being shown on any old site, and better yet, it provides repetition. You see, while web surfers have become somewhat blind to ads, they still have a subconscious effect, and some estimates say it can take more than seven repetitions of the image before they begin to feel familiar and comfortable with the brand being advertised.
That may lead them to click through the next time they see the ad, or they may find a reference to the brand somewhere else and that familiarity will lead them to take a closer look.
There are two major downsides to buying your ads directly. The first is that where contextual advertising draws attention to your ad across a whole range of sites, the ads you buy directly stay on one site – they don't rotate. You have to weigh this up with the benefit of knowing that all your advertising dollars are keeping your ad on a reputable site that you know is well-targeted.
Secondly, you pay a flat rate even if nobody clicks on your ad. If it doesn't work, you cancel the deal and find somewhere else to run your ad. Contextual advertising only charges you when a user clicks on an ad and goes through to your site.
You can't blame people for having to find ways to filter out the astounding amount of advertising they're subjected to each day. But it does make life difficult for advertisers! For instance, everyone knows what a Google AdSense block looks like, and their profitability for site owners – especially those running blogs for the tech-savvy – has gone down over the years. Always try to experiment with your ads until you find something that works for you. Sometimes a subtle change in the copy of an ad can make a profound difference in click-throughs.
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Note: This article was sent to us by: Ethan C. Moore at 02172011
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