So you want to monetize your site by putting some ads up there, great. How do you get started? The simple answer for a lot of people is to open an AdSense account. AdSense is certainly the biggest website advertising solution for publishers, but I do not believe it is the best. Stricter terms and conditions now see accounts frozen for the most mild of infractions and the money is not good enough to motivate some people. There are alternatives out there, and the one that I would like to talk about today is the website advertising publisher offering from Yahoo!. Yahoo! really has a great website advertising for publishers. If you are familiar with how to place an AdSense ad, you can certainly manage a Yahoo! placement. They are virtually identical in many respects.

What many people like about the Yahoo! website advertising platform is the ease of payment. You don’t need to take bank transfers or checks, you can be paid by PayPal, which is the currency of so much e-commerce these days. There are some distinct advantages for many webmasters to get paid in PayPal. A lot of the jobs that are outsourced are paid for with the e-currency. It can dramatically speed up cash flow. For small advertisers the PayPal option is nice because the minimum cash out amount is only $50. If you are looking for a robust website advertising publishing platform, Yahoo! has it all and more. Let’s hope they don’t change, it is a great website advertising product for publishers of all sizes.

People are moved by Google’s attempt to obtain more website advertising market share, but not in the way that Google would hope. The word that continues to be bandied about is greedy. While it could be argued that Google is a greedy company, you have to admit that they have always been the company to preempt new trends. If Google did not get the jump on video in website advertising, someone else would have and if there is one thing that Google is bad at, it is coming second.

According to Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim:

There’s really no other way to dress this up. Google’s decision to test video ads as part of its normal search results is based on nothing other than greed. Period.

That said, can anyone say they wouldn’t do the same? After all, Google is dominant, has no real competitors, and is under pressure from Wall Street to explore new ways to maintain its revenue growth.

There are two ways to look at this latest website advertising move from Google, one is that they are just plain greedy and want more, more and even more of the website advertising pie. To their competitors, this would certainly seem to be the case. If they can find a way to wrestle away website advertising customers from their competitors, of course they are going to do it.

I tend to view this as less indicative of Google’s greed than it is representative of the innovativeness of the company. What Google has done from the very beginning is to create trends rather than follow them. Video in website advertising could be more about covering their bases in case it becomes the next big thing than being greedy. Google got to where they are today by recognizing trends before they develop and you can bet that they are going to strive to continue to do so well into the future, lest they fall by the wayside like the number two search engine has of late. With video becoming an ever more present part of the Internet experience, it is only natural that it finds its way into website advertising.

Over the year of 2007, Internet advertising went up a total of 27% over the previous year. While Internet advertising is up, Google’s market share is down a little in the fourth quarter of 2007. According to Web Pro News:

For the entire year 2007, online ad revenue grew 27 percent year over year to $25.5 billion.

IDC said that Google’s net U.S. market share dropped for the first time in two years because of a slow down in growth in domestic fourth quarter sales. Google’s net U.S. advertising market share decreased 0.5 percentage points to 23.7 percent last quarter compared to 3Q07.

Google still has a commanding lead in Internet advertising, but things at Microsoft are looking up. Microsoft is a relatively new contender in Internet advertising, however, they have managed to wrestle valuable points away from Google of late and should they manage to take control of Yahoo, they will be a force to be reckoned with.

For website marketers, continued growth in Internet advertising tells us two things, there is still some confidence in the market despite an apparently looming recession and that retailers are seeing benefits from their Internet advertising. If people are buying less, that factor is being muted by the fact that more people are researching their purchases over the Internet. While this is not necessarily good news for the economy, it is good news for those of us in our web-based micro-economy. As long as Internet advertising maintains a healthy level, it will be business as usual for website marketers.

I could have titled this article, “Why you Need Website Advertising to Promote your Business.” Website advertising is a certain way to get your website noticed and can achieve results much faster than would be possible with an organic marketing campaign. Whereas an organic marketing campaign can take months to get you noticed, website advertising is immediate. It is a surefire way to drive traffic to your website and it is remarkably cost effective.

There are a few things that you need to remember when it comes to building a successful website advertising campaign.

• Set a budget and don’t exceed it. Your website advertising budget should not be a burden to your business. You are spending money to get more business.
• Do your research. You don’t want to pay too much more than the market price for your website advertising and you certainly do not want to pay less.
• Plan a longterm website advertising strategy. Don’t go into a website advertising campaign with a, “how much can I afford this month?” mentality. Have a longterm game plan. You can always alter it should the need arise. You should not be spending as much as you have left each month, as you can always continue the campaign later.
• Support your website advertising campaign with a robust website. There is no point in beginning a website advertising campaign with an incomplete website. Get your website taken care of first.
• Use website advertising in conjunction with organic marketing techniques. There is no point on relying on one or the other.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Microsoft has really been shaking up the online advertising sector lately. In an area that they are relatively new to, they have been making big gains. A recent addition to their client list is none other than Wall Street Journal. It has been announced that Wall Street Journal’s online advertising will be served by Microsoft. Could this be a sign of things to come? For many people Google has become too large for comfort and it is nice to see an alternative contender. To take on Google a company needs some serious financial clout and Microsoft certainly has that.

“This deal is a significant win for Microsoft for two key reasons,” said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft. First, it makes the extended Microsoft advertising network the premier destination for advertisers interested in reaching financially minded users, as it complements our offering in this vertical through MSN Money and other syndication partners.
“Second, this deal is a strong indicator that we’re gaining significant traction with our advertising platform. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network is one of the largest financial services publishers in a very dynamic vertical segment, and we’re delighted to add it to our portfolio.” Source: Web Pro News

Clearly WSJ has chosen Microsoft for their online advertising provider because they believe it to be in their best interests financially. Google has raised their prices recently and there are suggestions that there are some financial ties involved. Whatever the reason, a client like WSJ is a great gain for Microsoft which seems to be going from strength to strength. As their web search percentages grow, I would expect them to achieve even bigger gains in the online advertising sector.

Web design projects can create time management issues. It takes a great deal of time to code a site if you are not doing it all the time. There once was a time that I would do all of my site designing myself in a bid to save a few extra bucks. It usually worked out well for me, but spending hundreds of hours in front of the computer screen designing websites is not my idea of fun. I prefer to be in the trenches making sales, promoting, producing content and that sort of thing. Time is money after all, and why not spend your time doing the things that you do best? Outsourcing website design can be a massive time saver and is not all that expensive with GetAFreelancer.com and Quote Catcher.

I use Quote Catcher for times that I want a site designed from the ground up. Quote Catcher will allow different designers to bid for your site. You will get up to five quotes, you choose the one that is the best offer from your point of view. The best offer does not have to be the cheapest one. It depends on your needs, if you want a slick looking website, then it is probably wise to go with whichever site designer has the most impressive portfolio. If it does not really matter, go with the cheapest.

When I have smaller or more technical jobs, I use GetAFreelancer.com. With GetAFreelancer.com you give a specific outline of the job that you require and freelance programmers will offer you bids. It is important to distinguish GetAFreelancer from Quote Catcher. The freelancers on GetAFreelancer.com are programmers, you use them for programming related jobs. If you need a shopping cart system, or would like to make some sort of site related improvement, this is the place to go.