As my way of thanking all my readers who signed up under my TLA Referral account, I’d like to share these 5 tips on how to get the most out of your Text Link Ads. These tips are more focused to those who have not had a single TLA ad placement since they signed up. There could be several reasons why no one has ordered a link ad on your site/blog so we’ll try to tackle all of them here.
- Target the Right Link Advertisers.
Every advertiser will have to start somewhere to find your blog in TLA. Most of them will do two things — browse the category listings and do a keyword search. Make sure your blog is placed under the right TLA Category. With the thousands and thousands of TLA Publishers out there, it will be hard to find you unless you’re listed on the right category. If for the longest time you haven’t had an ad placement, maybe it’s time to switch to another more popular category. - Be Generic but more Specific.
In order for your blog to be under the advertiser’s radar, you’ll have to describe your blog accurately and put in the right keywords. Putting the right keywords will make you more visible — make them generic but a bit specific. So instead of listing the following keywords for you blog (e.g. Philippines, Pinoy, Filipino, Blog, Blogging) you might want to change them to these — Asia, Education, News, Media, Technology. Likewise, you need to title your blog accordingly. Instead of following your blog’s usual byline (e.g. Personal Blog of Juan de la Cruz), you may want to try a more generic one like “Review & Resource Site on Asian Entertainment”. - Show some Stats.
Your blog will be competing with hundreds and even thousands of other blogs so it would be wise to show more value to the advertiser offhand. TLA displays the Alexa Rank and Link Popularity Rank by default but you may want to include you blog’s traffic stats and feed subscriber count within the description field. Not only do they get the SEO benefit, they’ll also more likely to get foot traffic since they know how much visitors your blog gets. - Keywords, keywords, keywords. Experiment on the targeted keywords you use for the ad marketplace. Put as many as you can. You can start by using your own blog’s category list and work from there. Sometimes, inflections and synonyms (or related words) can make a huge difference — say “blogs” instead of “blog or blogging” or instead of “travels”, try “hotels” or “plane tickets”.
- Pump back some Link Juice. Since selling links basically reduces your blog’s PR juice, you need to get some back. Otherwise, you will either lose some Google juice or a downgraded PageRank which will eventually affect your blog’s market price.
There are other minors factors that I think is worth noting is the number of pages the link ad will be placed on. You have the option to put it only on your homepage or on all the pages. It will affect the price and the over-all worth of the ad placement. Having the link ad on all the pages will surely increase the link price (good for you but might turn off the advertiser) and though a single link on the frontpage will be lower (and could attract more advertisers), it also means you’re bleeding less PR-passing juice.
i just bought a new domain name for my gaming blog.
For those who are knowledgeable about how to increase PR fast. Please do share those knowledge. I some knowledge about gaining PR but maybe there some more precise tips in gaining that elusive PR.
I just have got to mention you help make several fantastic facts and will probably write-up a variety of concepts to add just after a day or two.
The requirement is a bit higher for me now. I’m still aiming to gain additional PR for my newly published blog. How many month is it possible to have PR 4?
thanks bro, good tips I like your articles
Nice tips! I just hope they approve my site soon.
nice tips , thanks
Great article! I wrote a similar article on my blog > http://bitfilm.net/2008/02/06/text-link-ads-publisher-tips/
Thanks for the advice! :) The last tip is interesting. What are some of the things that we can do in order to pump back some link juice?
Good advice. (except I don’t think you want you blog “under the advertiser’s radar” … that’s spy talk for being invisible …flying below the radar so no one can detect you).
There is nothing at all wrong with bieng proud Pinoy and writing about the aspects of Pinoy life that make you paaionate . in fact the _only_ way to get anywhere in the blogging world is to write about what you are passionate about. But “Pinoy” is not a subject that attracts anyone to advertise. As an outsider living her … my Pinay wife and I read dozens of Filipino blogs … my advice is, use keywords that are attractive to advertisers, Example … Call centers and Business Outsource Processing are _hot_ right now. You don’t have to like the trends .. writing about how you dislike them is great stuff too … but use some keywords and titles that are in the international.
Also, from personal experience with TLA … their automated process doesn’t work real well. Do _not_ wait months. If you are rejected. write them a short email pf appeal immediately. If you haven’t heard anyhting in two months, get off your butt and write … in most cases they will approve by return mail … write directly to Patrick Gavin, the founder of TLA, he has helped me a lot and he cares about bloggers.
I sent an e-mail and they activated me in no less than 5 hours. At least they have fast customer service! Hahaha ^^;;
Hopefully I get approved soon – I’m already at PR5 and still no approval @_@
Great tips sir abe…
Wauks – If you have a PR most likely they’ll approve your site. But they do this on a monthly basis. Still you could contact them (like what I did) to manually approve your site ;-)
Hope this helps
Carl
I think it’s a PR 4 or a PR3 + Alexa < 1M. Not exactly sure since they have internal computations for that.
Hi Yuga!
Just a quick question. What does TLA check for approval for the advertising program? I’ve been waiting for 2 months to get approval from them T_T