If you're just getting started on the internet--or simply looking for ways to add new revenue streams to your business--you might be considering accepting ads for other companies' products on your website.
Who wouldn't like to make a few extra bucks without any effort? You just put up a few ads on your site and wait for the cash to roll in, right?
Not necessarily.
To make your site attractive to companies looking for ad space, you'll need to have a great niche market, tons of traffic and the promise of good ad placement on your site. However, if you don't have all these elements in place yet, there are still ways for you to make money from ads on your site. The easiest--and often the most successful--include:
The basic concept is that the broader your make your advertising (the fat head) – the more traffic you’ll get. But the less conversions (sales, emails, etc) you’ll receive versus specific advertising to the targeted few (the long-tail). The more “targeted few” are fewer in number for each category and are much more qualified to convert. It can be tedious to target very few. And it feel like it’s smaller potential, but in aggregate the “long-tail” or “targeted few” is larger than the big, broad approach.
When it comes to how to advertise your website – it pays to spend the extra bit of time finding all those little niches to advertise in, rather than wasting your cash on the “fat-head” terms (unless you do just want to spend the money…if so, have at it).
The fat head vs long tail doesn’t just apply to keywords though. It also applies to audiences. Below is a screenshot of a Facebook ad campaign targeting specific audiences.