By
Yorgo Nestoridis
Online Advertising
Online Advertising on Google Top 10 positions on relevant keywords is an important prerequisite to monetize your website, namely if you market mainly to search engines.
How to Advertise Online with a Google Top 10 Strategy
We have been talking about the issue earlier where we defined some simple rules which help to optimize the chances to rank high on Google search returns.
Considering the different elements of a web presence we permanently test the efficiency of online advertising on our test sites.
Online Advertising on a web site
Our preferred web sites (from Semiomantics) consist of three distinct elements:
1. The Software which runs the show.
2. The visible Frame of the site consisting of stable static elements, such as design elements (where applicable), sidebars, footers, headers, defined fields in the layout designed to hold static or predefined content.
3. The Content which can be dynamic (such as blog posts) or static (such as static pages).
The boarder between static and dynamic content is not based an exact science, the more that recent developments allow for dynamic content on traditionally static elements and static features on dynamic elements.
Traditional Online Advertising
In the past, web sites consisted of static pages with static content and more or less pre-defined areas where ads were posted.
With the development of blogs Google seemed to start to privilege dynamic content, assuring that search returns represent amongst others fresh content and the latest posts on a topic.
Blog sites are traditionally well divided into two parts:
1. The dynamic content
2. The static frame
Online Advertising was added to the static sidebars, headers and footers.
Shifting Online Advertising
Contextual Advertising with Google Ads (AdSense) is an automated process by which contextual ads are associated with content whereas the ad served is function of the content (topic, keywords, tags). A brilliant idea, considering the time saved and the enhanced targeting.
Today, there is no limit for advertising; ads can be contextual in respect to a post content or in respect to the main purpose of the site as such. Ads can be embedded in static and dynamic parts of the web site and they can have most any form and shape, from text to media.
Online Advertising beyond the web site
Ads can be served with high precision, not only on a web site but also beyond: while the reader of your blog may read a ‘clean’ post and see ads only in the side bar for example, the readers of your feeds may receive the same post content associated with ads, for example the ads you have served to your live reader in the sidebar.
If your content is subject to syndication, your feed can include any kind of advertising, even media.
Online Advertising and Publishers
As the owner of a web site you are a Publisher. Your ambition is to get great interesting content to gain visibility and loyal readership and to finance the operation by associating ads to that content.
Our site is a platform where authors and advertisers meed and where you (as the publisher) balance the different interests to optimize your impact and earnings.
Also as a publisher, your focus reaches beyond the visible part of your site; you also keep an eye and manage your feeds and as the case may be other products linked to your publication, such as media, free give aways and downloads.
Online Advertising and Behavior
Behavioral Marketing and Advertising have been an ambition for quite some time. While Google and Social Networks build data bases compiling behavioral data, the implementation of behavioral strategies may be jeopardized by legal restrictions, namely in terms of privacy rules and ethics. Also it seems that pure behavioral strategies remain less efficient than the traditional word to mouth strategies.
Online Advertising and Semantics
Semantics are important in any targeted marketing concept; however, as per now, developers continue to struggle and no automated generally useful formula has been found yet. If and when search engines such as Google are capable to apply advanced semantics to the search engine technology, things may change, but yet we are miles away from a semantic Google engine.
Online Advertising for Everybody
To keep things simple for average users, developers have invented Niche Marketing. Niche Marketing is a brilliant concept for most any web master, since it eliminates many problems the non professional may encounter when publishing online.
By focusing on a particular topic, category or niche, the scope of the site is limited and targeting is easier as it’s relatively convenient to choose products and services to associate to a niche keyword.
Sure, the big advertising programs or big merchants have a solution for all and everybody making it easy to add ads to any site, namely if the site is clearly focused on a niche. And yet, many publishers, blog masters and newbie webmasters struggle to place the ads in a meaningful way on their sites.
The Google Guru Guru Approach
Google Gurus, rich of advise, have a tip and an answer to all the problems we may encounter, however the Guru Approach seems more often than not to be focused on the interests of Google rather than the individual publisher.
According to widely published Google Gurus, to reach Google Top 10 you need good (original) content, and loads of it. Looking at search returns, this is obviously not true, and Google is obviously not in a position to measure quality and to distinguish good from bad, original from copy and true from fake. It’s wishful thinking to imagine that Google search results will get substantially better by just tweaking the algorithm a bit here and a tick there.
Another Guru Approach is to make us believe that we have to clearly tag, mark or distinguish ads from other content. There is nothing wrong with that per se; but as a web master, it is not my job to work for Google and to make the distinctions READABLE by Google.
Example: to comply with legal rules (Consumer Protection) one could load a title “Advertisement” in form of an image or a flash tag which Google cannot read. We comply with the rules, however Google is not capable of reading it. Google Gurus want to make us believe that we have to be more catholic than the pope and edit for Google. The Guru Approach often is an approach with tends to protect the Guru Status and if you want to be a Google Guru, just repeat stupidly what Google writes smartly on their sites and blogs.
The good news is that Google Blogs are analyzed by many Gurus like Alan Greenspan’s statements a few years back. The Gurus then feed their stuff to main stream and they luckily are followed by the masses of developers and blog masters. This is the good news as it indicates clearly where not to head to.
Online Advertising Secrets
Online Advertising Secrets, Google Secrets and such like do exist; the day they are revealed, they are no secrets anymore. By definition there is no such thing as a shared secret and a secret is usually revealed when it does not profit the holder of a secret anymore.
The only real Advertising secrets I can think of concern target keywords and the way to reach out for the targeted buying public. No one will ever share with you a money making keyword, namely in an AdSense environment, and no one will ever share with you the underlying strategy used to publish in a highly (Google) efficient way.
And yet there is a solution to the problem: you can learn to create your own professional secrets. You can learn how to analyze keywords and how to test and optimize your keyword targeting. And you can learn how to publish and how to advertise on your publication. You draw the conclusions from various publishing strategies, apply them to your business and secret keywords, test and optimize and there will be nothing in the way for you to become a Guru, your own Guru. But don’t tell anyone else.
Learn to Advertise and to Publish Online
Online Advertising and Publishing is a permanently evolving topic and the learning process is never finished. Whether you are building a home business or just selling some products as an affiliate, whether you are a networker or producing your own products, there is always a formula ready for you. The important part is first of all to become aware of the various techniques and to master them. The successful application of any technique is subject to unlimited virtuosity and creativity and that is where the job as a publisher becomes interesting.
Ycademy Online Seminars and Ycademy Pro Calls deal with the evolving environment and are designed to make the best and most recent strategies and techniques available to participants. There is no secret to it, and there is no secret to the success of those who actively apply and implement in a selective and focused way the seeds of Ycademy. What grows from there is the individual Professional Secret of Success.
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