There’s an old saying … You’ll never make the shot you don’t take. It’s in that spirit I’m announcing that, starting today, I’ll be experimenting with some new advertising here in the form of sponsored posts. I’m doing things with a different approach, so hopefully you’ll give me the opportunity to explain the program in more detail.

Disclosure: First off, I will disclose all sponsored posts at the top and bottom of the posts. I’m not trying to sneak anything past you.

Paid Links: I’m not tempting the Google gods so all links will be nofollowed and pass through an advertising redirect that is blocked for search spiders. Overkill, sure, but that’s the playground we’re all in.

Vetting: I’m going to look into previewing the destination site/service/product beforehand. If something doesn’t look right and I can’t resolve it with the advertiser, you’ll never see it here.

Low Volume: I’m limiting the number of sponsored posts to a maximum of two per month.

If you’re an advertiser, this presents some interesting opportunities for you:

Custom Content: I’d like to give you a really one-of-a-kind, unique opportunity to communicate with the people you want to reach as your potential customers. We can use a number of interesting avenues like interviews, in depth product reviews, videos, tutorials, and so on. I’d like to offer the ability to do something you can’t do anywhere else. If you want to run your own copy, that’s an option too.

Visibility: In addition to getting your content in front of all of the RSS subscribers (15K at the time of this post), your ad will be placed in the top left corner of this website for the duration of your campaign. See the diagram below for an example. You will have that spot exclusively during the time your ad runs. More detailed traffic stats available upon request.

Open Scheduling: You can schedule your ad to run whenever you want (provided that someone else hasn’t reserved that time period). You can choose a two week run time or four week run time.

Long Term Content: It’s my intention to keep your post available in the archives of this blog for as long as it’s on the web. If for some reason I am legally or morally compelled to remove your ad, or some irreversible technical issue comes up, it will be dealt with on a case by case basis, but it’s my intention to keep your post up. Additionally, if there aren’t any new scheduled ads, I’ll sometimes mix old ads in rotation.

Hopefully I’ve hit the high points, but I’ll add info here as questions come up. Want to find out how you can get involved in this opportunity? Stop by the contact form. Think this is the worst idea ever? Go ahead over to the contact form and let me know.

Advertisement: Need SEO help with your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services #3

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

Sponsored Posts Experiment

1. Is Sarah Lacy Making Sponsored Posts on TechCrunch? Post Updated See End of Post If you read...
2. Guest Posts Like them or Dislike Them Ok so I’ve run most of my guest posts, I...
3. Looking for Guest Posts So over the years I’ve been asked more than once...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you pay attention to the ads that monetize most of the web, you’ve likely noticed a trend towards ads that promote content. Glance at these nifty alternatives to traditional banner ads, make some observations of your own, and then join me again at the end for my own analysis.

Is web 2.0 moving marketers to view community-building is a desirable goal?

AMEX

The AMEX ads above are the strongest affirmative answer to that question. The ads’ main goal is to drive entrepreneurs to AMEX’s Open Forum initiative, where the business owners can pick up expert tips to manage their businesses. Not only that, but AMEX has developed a ‘Connectodex’ service that helps SMB owners make connections amongst themselves.

In exchange, AMEX gets brand awareness with excellent targeting, filling the top of the sales funnel. They’ve also got a direct response effort going on at the site itself that succeeds in balancing AMEX’s revenue goals with visitors’ learning goals. You might have also noticed the subtle ‘Apply Now’ call to action in the banner’s upper right corner that ties into this.

Neutrogena

This co-branded ad with the Glam network tries to target 20- and 30-somethings, judging by the models and the text of the ad. And instead of talking about “me,” the ad focuses on “you” by offering tips presumably geared towards their audience’s interest.

I didn’t click the ad (I already know how to stay fabulous, duh), but I’m guessing by the co-branding with Glam that Neutrogena’s chosen to answer my question in the negative. They don’t want to build their own community of 20-something women.

Chase / Visa / Marriott Rewards

The ad targets an  affluent demographic of travelling businessmen who would presumably care for a hotel-rewards card with content that solicits them by name, as with AMEX’s focus on business owners. But the approach appears to be the same as with Neutrogena – sponsor content without hosting/ “owning” it.

(As an aside, I think the particular piece of content they’re sponsoring is brilliant given the bulls-eye targeting it affords Chase/Visa/Marriott.)

CLDS / Mormon.org

The Church of Latter Day Saints (CLDS) has a pretty unique situation:

• They have the express offline goal of bringing you into their community
• Their website features more content, just like AMEX
• The website’s format isn’t so much of a traditional online community where you have a multilateral conversation, but more of a guidance counsellor office type of place where you can put your questions to a missionary 1-on-1

As with other lead gen campaigns, the Mormons seem to have concluded that offering content and then gradually nurturing the lead is more effective than going for an immediate sale. This is reflected in their ‘Find a Meetinghouse [a Church]‘ call to action getting secondary treatment below the fold.

But by promoting their content (particularly with the clever flash-animated instant messaging  format), the CLDS is clearly promoting its content to build community.

What about SEO?

The lessons from these campaigns aren’t unique to banner ad campaigns.

When you’re buying or building links, you can be quite successful going with a content marketing approach. And if you own the community, you get the opportunity for both brand awareness/top of mind campaigning and your own customized direct response package. Which means you can be more aggressive with your SEO (eg by buying links) as well as reduce your dependency on search traffic. Inhouse community-building FTW!

{|- Last second update -|}

It appears the clairvoyant John Battelle called this as a 2009 prediction. In fairness, his Federated Media works with many of the companies employing this strategy, as he reveals in his 2009 Predictions: How Did I Do? post. Also, I recall Aaron Wall highlighting the foundation for this trend – advertisers creating their own content sites [not to be confused with website copy] – but it seems that hasn’t stopped them from advertising as Aaron suggested; instead they’re just advertising content.

Gab Goldenberg wrote this post for Red Fly Marketing, an Irish search engine optimisation and online advertising company. You can find Gab on Twitter @GabGoldenberg.

Advertisement: Track your keyword rankings over time with SEO Keyword Ranking

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

Is Web 2.0 Creating An Ad Trend Towards Promoting Content?

1. Promoting Cooking Related Sites on Flickr Even though I may enjoy cooking I know not everyone...
2. Creating the Ultimate Personal Hub and Nerve Center Last week I was reading Steve Rubel’s turning Gmail into...
3. Creating the Ultimate Digg Post Recently I got to thinking, what would it take to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. IAC Creates Ad Network To Target “Audience Cubes”, 2. Google Trends For Websites: Adds URL Traffic Measurement, 3. Google’s Matt Cutts: Tips On Increasing Web Site Visibility

SearchEngineUpdate with Vanessa Zamora – 06-23-2008 is a post from: Rankings.me

ShareThis

Google’s Matt Cutts gives tips to small business owners… Learn how to get more done and have more fun in your business. The witty and useful weekly web TV show with Andrew Lock, the maverick marketer.

Re: Google’s Matt Cutts gives tips to small business owners is a post from: Rankings.me

ShareThis