Website owners who keep an eye on the tendencies in the web publishing world know that these past years blogs have greatly increased in popularity. Why is it so and what does it mean for advertisers?

The general belief not until long ago was that blogs are no good for advertising. For blogs started out as web journals, where people put their personal notes and reflections. Well, besides friends and family, who would care to read these? But soon blogs became also the means by which persons who really have something to say and high professionals expressed valuable opinions on topics of great interest, and they preferred blogs as these permit a free form of expression, allowing pure communication, unbiased and published in real time.

People look for such places on the internet knowing that thye'll find true, authentic information they can trust. For example, if you look for info on a specific topic you will find all kind of information from contradictory sources. That's when you want to find such an open place where any matter is open to commentaries and subject to constructive debate and you feel involved instead of just a looker-on. And you find valuable links too. It's connection and communication that builds value. The result is usually one closer to reality than many other materials.

AdSense™ for Blogs

Naturally, Google™ has entered the game. Blogs are the kind of sites that Google™ like: lots of links, fresh, new, rich content. Besides, they are still a not very explored ground with good potential in advertising.

Blog Optimization for AdSense™

Generally, the optimization principles are the same as for websites in general and the rules to be observed also, but because blogs are a particular form of web publishing, there are certain peculiarities on several main topics:

Qualify for Google AdSense™

First and foremost, keep up-to-date with Google™ AdSense Program Policies.

• Theme relevance. By their nature, blogs may mix several themes. Theme irrelevance might be a reason of rejection.
• Topic. Because of their openness to comments, blogs are exposed to occurence of offensive content. Filtering should be applied.
• Traffic. Low traffic might be a rejection ground.

Increase targeted traffic

• Content. Blogs that offer exactly what people are looking for are the most read. And put it in the best form — be brief, be true, be relevant, be clear.
• Don't spam in other blogs. Just truly comment on others blogs. Spamming is easily detectable and will have the opposite effect.
• Frequent updates maintain readers' interest high.
• Stimulate readers to come back by maintaining an interactive blog that involves readers.
• Links. With blogs, linking works wonderfully. Place as many links to other blogs as you can. The other bloggers are very open to linking back to you.
• Submit your blog to popular blog directories, such as Technocrati, Blogdex, Open Directory.

There are some traffic-generator topics for blogs (such as politics, celebrity/gossip, religion, sports) but they have lesser potential to generate AdSense™ earnings. These work with impression based ads, but are less suitable for CPC-based advertising, as they have no real product to promote and usually generate low EPC. Tech blogs are more worthwhile, as they are a combination of reasonable traffic generators and good click value.

Click Through Rate (CTR) and Cost Per Click

• Less is better. Keeping a small number of ads on page means higher CTR and higher CPC. Having a very limited number of ads will permit only the highest paying ads to appear. Keeping the ones placed in strategic positions will significantly increase CTR. Make sure you place them in your code in the order that you want them to appear (that is the highest paying ones in the best positions).
• Ads placement and customization. Blogs are about content. With blog, in-content, blend-in ads seem to work better than ads above your posts or to the sides. Especially the first paragraph of content is recommended as a strategic place, because it's generally read. The objective is (for blogs and for other websited) to bring the ad into the immediate view of the reader and to keep unspoiled the looks of the page.
• Variation in ads customization. Many blogs have regular readers who become used to the formats of your ads and thus, ad-blind. Moving ads and changing formats helps in these cases.
• High paying ads are attracted also by means of a “good” topic. Target the right markets — businesses with a higher profit margin will spend more on advertising.

Attract targeted ads

• Having your own domain name (that is also relevant for your blog content) pays a lot. Such a blog will get more relevant ads than one on a blog-hosting domain name. Usually, a blog-hosting domain contains blog-smth in the name, what will direct blog services ads. These will serve you only if you blog about blogging!
• Include keywords in the URL of your page. It may work. (The problem is that with blogs platforms you cannot do this in all cases.)
• Pay attention to keywords. One tendency with blogs is to use very many times the word "blog" (in title, on the sidebar and in the footer). Try to avoid this or you'll get blog services ads.
• Topic — maintain one topic per page. Keep each post targeted.
• Block ads that you consider irrelevant.