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In this episode, we talk about the best practice for using ads.
Let’s dive into this week’s question!
JOCELYN: Today’s question is from Dara and she says:
“I’m trying to figure out a classy way to put ads and affiliate links on my website. I’m concerned that it might be unexpected for folks to see ads or affiliates on the site. I don’t want to turn people off.”
I think this is really common concern that people have and it’s a concern that I have had in the past. Thank you so much for this question.
SHANE: I think there are a couple of ways to do this. This is kind of what we do to make sure that we don’t turn people off from our affiliate links or ads. What we do is we basically try to always relate any ads or affiliate links to the content that we’re talking about.
If I was reviewing podcast equipment because we have a podcast and maybe I was talking about a microphone that we use or something like that, maybe I’m doing a review for that, well, my affiliate link on that page would be related to my content. It would only be for the microphone that I use. I wouldn’t just randomly put affiliate links all over the page just to try to get clicks.
We don’t really do a lot of sidebar advertising or header advertising. We don’t just put up banner ads because there’s a lot of ad blindness on the internet. People are used to seeing ads in those places. We try to incorporate all of the affiliate links kind of into our content. That way, it’s kind of related and it makes sense for the affiliate link to be there.
Another thing is we don’t really use Google Ads. We’ve used Google Ads and ad systems in the past, but what we found was people were getting farmed up advertising for things that might not be related to the content. It was more related to what they searched for before they got to our site or something like that, and they were seeing ads that were kind of breaking up the atmosphere of the site.
I have a football website over at www.CoachXO.com for football coaches and when I put Ad Words on that, sometimes it would show ads for other things, like maybe if there were on Amazon searching for a new computer, they might see a computer ad and it kind of jarred the experience of what my content was about.
So we kind of stopped using those automated advertising delivery things on a lot of our websites because it really was messing up the user experience. So whatever you do with your advertising, just make sure you’re protecting that user experience and that whatever you’re promoting that you are connecting that with your content to make sure that it should be there. It’s not something random, don’t be apologetic for showing ads on your website.
JOCELYN: On that note, there are ways for you to sort of control what Google shows. If you do decide to use Google Ads, and there’s nothing wrong with that especially if you’re just starting out, you can go in and set it where it will not show like adult ads, gambling sites, or a variety of different controversial ad placements because what will happen is people will be searching for whatever they are searching for and then they will email you and be like, “I saw whatever on your website.”
SHANE: “This was a naughty ad.” You’re like, “Well, that’s your fault, buddy.”
JOCELYN: That was because you were searching for it, just saying.
SHANE: Right.
JOCELYN: But there are ways that you can actually go in and turn that off and you can only show ads for certain subjects, I guess you would say. So that is one option if you do decide to use Google Ads. We actually advertise only our own products on our own sites. If you have a digital product already, that is certainly an option for you. If you don’t, you can use Google Ads.
I would just say don’t use a ton of Google Ads. You can only use so many on a page anyway but I will use under that even just because you don’t want people to think that it’s just some kind of spam site. You want the focus to be on your content and your site, and not on the 500 ads that are surrounding it.
SHANE: And there are some best practices for that too. What we have found works, there are Google heat maps and there are experts out there that say, “Place ads everywhere. This is your niche sites.” But don’t do that. In reality, you’ve got to keep the focus on your content to keep your audience there.
When we do show ads, we try to only show them in the in post block, we have a neat plugin over at www.FlippedLifestyle.com. if you go check it out you can scroll down and we have two ads that appear in either our free course where you can learn how to create a digital product, there are six videos that we made for you guys, or you can join our 29-day Flip Your Life e-course, and those ads don’t appear until you get to the bottom of the page.
That way, the advertising is kind of out of the way until you’ve enjoyed our content, you’re finished, and your audience is naturally looking for that next step. Well, then we show an ad at the end of the post to make sure we get that clicked on the thing that we want them to do.
Make sure you’re not just putting ads everywhere – top, middle, bottom, sidebar. Strategically place your ads where you want them and where it won’t get in the way of your audience, but it kind of gives them like the next step that they should do.
JOCELYN: And just a note on that ad bar on the side, that’s actually not a plugin. We’ve had that question so I just want to clear that up.
SHANE: It’s a widget area, isn’t it, or something like that?
JOCELYN: It is but it is custom coded. We actually had a developer custom code that for us, so don’t email us saying, “What’s that plugin?” because it’s really not a plugin.
SHANE: See, I didn’t even know that it wasn’t a plugin. That’s how much that I know about what’s going on, right? What I’m saying is just think of ways that you can kind of put the ad in a place where you’re going to lead your customer to the ad. Don’t just throw a giant flashing banner at the top of your page and say, “Please, God, click me and give me some money.” Don’t do that. You want to make it nice and kind of fit in.
The last thing we want to say on this too is if you’re using affiliate links, the law actually requires that you have to say that is an affiliate link and you have to put it right then and there. Don’t put it on the bottom of your page. You might put, “I have affiliate links on this site.”
Whenever you’re using an affiliate link, you need to tell people that it’s an affiliate link because you don’t want people to feel like they’ve been bait and switched because that’s a quick way to lose an audience member is if they click something thinking they are going to get good content from you and they go to another web page where someone is trying to sell them something, that’s going to turn people off.
Make sure you declare openly that those are affiliate links and what we’ve even started doing, we’ve been experimenting with is we’ve been putting two links and saying, “Hey, this is an affiliate link. Thanks for clicking as it helps keep the site free” because that’s what keeps the site free is advertising.
We have another one that says, “Hey, if you don’t want to click our affiliate link, that’s fine we understand but we just want you to have the best tool possible. Click here. This is not an affiliate link” that might be something else you could do to get people to kind of give you a tip or whatever on your website. They can click your affiliate link and make some money and people expect ads. Would you say so, Jocelyn? People think that you’re going to have to advertise.
JOCELYN: Yeah I think, for the most part, people know that you’ll have it on your site and it’s not a big deal especially if you frame it as “thanks for supporting the site. This keeps it free.”
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Amy Hagerup says
Thanks for the tips. I have wondered about advertising on my blog but haven’t done it yet. I like the look and colors of your blog. Good job. Go gently now, Amy