How to drive revenue from the ads on your site

As a publisher, it’s important to know how to optimize your web site to help drive better traffic. This can help drive up your program earnings which is enough motivation for most publishers.

Last year, Yahoo!’s Cody Simms and Amit Paunikar wrote in a great four-part series on this blog about various optimization practices. In case you missed it—and in case you don’t have time to read a four-part series—we’ve boiled it down to some key tips to help your business.

Focus on making your site as text-based as possible
“Crawlers” are programs that analyze the content on your site for ad targeting purposes. Be sure to include important topic-oriented items in the text fields of your site, rather than hinting at them in image or other elements.

Consider adding dynamic content on the home page
Content that frequently changes while remaining on-topic for your audience not only keeps the interest of your audience, it perks up the attention of our content analyzers. Static content could bore users, which may result in low click-through rates.

Structure your site
Your site structure helps your users and our systems to understand what your site is about. Here are some tips:
• Integrate keywords into your URL structure. Consider using permalinks, rather than query strings.
• Use strong keywords as “anchor text.” Link text should be descriptive rather than text like “Click here.”
• Use concise descriptors. Put short descriptions under a link when possible.

Content do’s
You want to make your content relevant, which helps drive your click-through rate. Relevant content can also help ads become more appealing to your users. Here are several actions to take that should help on this front:
• Write for users. Users generally come to your page to read your content, not to click on ads.
• Maintain your editorial integrity. Write unique articles that drive traffic to your site.
• Take time to optimize your web pages. Use distinct titles, headers and section headlines for each article.
• Limit the number of low-content pages on your site. If you have a page with a lot of images, make sure you use alternate text.
• Maintain a high “signal-to-noise” ratio. Keep the content of each page focused on one or two topics at most.

 Content don’ts
Simplicity helps clarity, so you don’t want to load your site down with too much stuff. Here are a few tips of what not to do with your content:
• Don’t use unnecessary code.
• Don’t use unnecessary language.
• Don’t try to take shortcuts around lack of content or traffic.
• Whatever network you use, don’t violate the “Terms of Service” or “Terms and Conditions.”

For more details and additional tips, please read the entire series:

Optimizing for Relevancy, Part I: Semantics and Bots

Optimizing for Relevancy, Part II: Anatomy of a Web Page

Optimizing for Relevancy, Part III: Content Do’s

Optimizing for Relevancy, Part IV

— Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications

…and how to pick one

Editor’s note: A while back, we told you about our purchase of Right Media, creators of the Right Media Exchange, but you still may not be sure why we bought them or even what they do. At Right Media, they get asked these questions every day. Now that they are part of the Yahoo! family, we thought we’d have them tell you in their own words.

You’re probably aware of what a stock exchange is—or at least aware that it somehow controls your destiny. But an ad exchange is something a little more foreign. In 2005, Right Media launched the Right Media Exchange and the online advertising community responded with a resounding “WHAT??”

An ad exchange works on the same fundamental concept as a stock exchange: it’s a (virtual) place where you can buy and sell stuff, in this case online advertising. Publishers and ad networks make their inventory available for sale, and buyers—advertisers and other ad networks—attempt to purchase that inventory.

Ad networks are critical for aggregating audiences. But if they’re disconnected from the rest of the market, they can hinder efficiency and profitability because they offer limited supply and demand. For publishers who “daisy chain” networks together based on their best guesses as to which networks will be able to pay them the most, manually prioritizing and allocating inventory to networks can be a hassle. For example, how do you know that the network at the top of your chain can pay you more than one at the middle of your chain? You don’t.

The online ad exchange was conceived as a way of opening up what’s closed, simplifying the complicated, and making more money as a result. In the exchange, all market players—advertisers, publishers and networks—are interconnected on a common platform and have open access to each others’ supply and demand. They trade inventory in a real-time auction, letting the market determine pricing.

Instead of juggling networks based on a lot of guesswork, publishers simply let all buyers (networks and advertisers) compete for each individual ad impression, and allocate it to the highest bidder automatically. The publisher gets more revenue on the impression with little effort, and the buyer, bidding according to its preset goals, can get better return on investment.

So what makes one ad exchange different from another? 

When you’re looking at joining an exchange, ask these questions:

1. Does it work in real time?  Using historical data is like checking yesterday’s weather to predict what to wear today.
2. Is it neutral?  A neutral exchange simply provides a technology that allows for buying and selling, and doesn’t attempt to hold all the relationships with the buyers and sellers.  
3. Is it scaleable?  If your site goes from 100,000 to 100,000,000 impressions a month, will that exchange be able to handle that volume?
4. Is it secure?  How does the exchange protect you as a publisher? (This is key: It isn’t as easy as you may think.)
5. Is there open competition?  Does the exchange allow non-members to compete with exchange members?
6. Is it a community?  Sure, there’s competition, but are there also forums so that people can communicate with each other and form partnerships?
7. Is it a technology platform?  Is it open, with APIs that anyone can connect to? 
8. Does it have publishers, advertisers AND networks?
9. Is there a solution for me?  Does the exchange offer a solution for both enterprise and non-enterprise publishers?
10. Are there strings attached?  What else does the exchange require you to do?

Making choices about your online advertising is difficult.  You are paying for bandwidth, building content—even feeding your families—so learning how to make a wise choice is imperative.  Be prepared to ask questions—HARD questions—when choosing an ad exchange. Most importantly, learn how to effectively use it.  Testing an exchange is different than testing a network, so learn from the community, get assistance from the exchange business teams.  Remember how different your world became when you went from dial-up to high speed?  Your online advertising is about to start moving that much faster.

—Jerri Gillean, Business Development Manager, Right Media Exchange

Beginning today, Yahoo! Web Hosting has gone “unlimited”

Editor’s Note: If you have a web site or want to build one—and since you’re reading a blog about online publishing, we’re guessing that’s probably the case—Yahoo! has good news for you. Starting today, our colleagues in Yahoo! Small Business are offering unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited email storage to their web hosting customers.

Yahoo! Small Business customers have told us loud and clear that they want getting online to be as easy and painless as possible. Instead of worrying about things like, “How many visitors can my site handle?” and “How many pages can I build?,” small business owners want to focus on growing their businesses and driving traffic to their sites, feeling comfortable knowing their hosting package will grow with their business.

The new Yahoo! Web Hosting offers unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, unlimited email storage and 1,000 email accounts—all for $11.95 a month. For the very large majority of small business owners who want a professional-looking site in hours, the decision to choose Yahoo! has suddenly become much easier.

Don’t know the first thing about web design? No sweat. Every Yahoo! Small Business service includes award-winning, easy-to-use web site design tools that can help business owners with little or no technical experience to quickly and easily build great-looking sites. You’ll also get a free domain name and 24/7 customer support, plus your satisfaction is guaranteed for 30 days. And if that wasn’t enough, Yahoo! Small Business automatically optimizes your web site and submits it to top search engines (I can think of a pretty good one) to help customers find your business.

Existing web hosting customers have already received an email invitation with the option to migrate to this new plan. If you’re not an existing customer and you want to get your business online, please visit Yahoo!’s Web Hosting site for more information.

Now go spread out. There’s plenty of room!

— Guy Yalif, Director, Web Hosting Products, Yahoo! Small Business

It’s the start of 2008 and it looks like online social media is still going strong.

If you haven’t heard of social media and social networking sites by now, don’t be embarrassed – you might already be a user. Sites such as Digg, MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, del.cio.us, Wikipedia and Reddit are just a few examples. Blogs can also be included within the social media mix.

“Overall visits to a group of 53 leading social network sites were up 4 percent year over year, and the top sites are becoming a mainstay of many Internet users’ routines,” according to last week’s findings by online market research company eMarketer.

If you have a teenager in your house, they’re probably part of online social network and several different social media networks. But don’t blame the youth; it’s not all a waste of time.  If they’re your target audience, you want to meet them online where they hang out. So, for you cynical traditionally-minded media marketers, the kids are still alright. 

Previously on our blog, guest contributor Louise Rijk discussed some of the benefits of social media marketing to get more visitors to your site.

Rijk defined social media marketing as marketing you start by uploading or bookmarking and tagging content on social media and networking sites. This content can be text, video, audio or even widgets that users put on their sites to distribute your content; and thus, become a sort of brand advocate for your product or service. For more information on brand advocates and social media, read Edwin Wong’s article “Getting the Word (of Mouth) Out.” 

Why use Social Media Marketing?
As Rijk wrote, some benefits of creating a social media marketing campaign include:

• More Links – These campaigns can generate more incoming links.
• More Traffic – Social media marketing campaigns can generate more traffic from profile pages, from links embedded in messages that travel virally throughout the social web.
• More Brand Awareness – These campaigns can create more buzz through visibility, online reputation and authority in the social media.
• Better Media “Legs” – If your message gets enough attention in the social media world, it might get picked up by other, more traditional media, such as mainstream new sites, newspapers, magazines and television.

Social Media Marketing Strategies
If you feel that social media would compliment your marketing mix, you may want to reach your audience via these strategies:
• Submitting a how-to article or tip sheet to a “voting” site like Digg and Reddit
• Bookmarking an article on sites like del.icio.us or ma.gnolia
• Uploading and tagging images up on Flickr, Photobucket, etc.
• Uploading videos to Yahoo! Video, iFilm, YouTube, etc.
• Establishing a business profile at a social media web site like MySpace or Facebook
• Developing your own widget that lets users spread your content on their own sites
Traditional advertising is a one way communication street with advertisers pushing their message(s) to the consumer. Social media, which is also defined as a collection of individuals or groups of person, is all about communicating. Marketing has transformed into a two-way communication street where engagement, honesty, trust and reputation are key attributes.

After some research you may find out that social media is not a good fit right now for your marketing mix. However, for those of you who are interested in learning more about social media here are some great resources:

• SMM in Depth
• Clicking into Social Media
• Tagging the Social Bookmark

– Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications

More Than an Ad Network

The Yahoo! Publisher Network is more than an ad network. It’s your gateway to all kinds of Yahoo! publisher and business services.

From the Publisher Services tab in your secure account interface, you can access all kinds of useful tools, marketing services, widgets, and tips of to help you build and enhance your site and drive traffic.

WFor example, with Yahoo! you can:

• Register a new domain, host your site, build a new one using Yahoo! Site Builder and even start your own online business selling your products.

• Add search options and liven your site up with action buttons, badges (such as MyBlogLog, Answers, Upcoming, del.icio.us and Flickr) that also help you gain more visibility through social media.

• Help your readers get there with Yahoo! Maps.

• Develop your own new applications and widgets through the Yahoo! Developer Network syndicate your content with RSS, find content and images to license through Creative Commons, and add video and podcasts.

• In addition, Right Media’s DMX allows you to augment your contextual ads with display ad from a huge network of networks. Direct Media Exchange is a mass market application for small to middle-sized publishers — it’s not just a free ad server, but a way to utilize the power of the auction (the Right Media Exchange) to get more revenue and save time managing your advertising partners. Read more about all their great products and services on Right Media’s blog.

And in Other News
Being a Yahoo! publisher myself, I have had a lot of fun interacting with you, my fellow publishers, here on the blog. But all good things must come to an end, and t. Today is my last day at Yahoo!. I’ll be moving on to take a position at BNET.com, the business arm of C|Net Networks, where I’ll be editing a number of business-related (surprise!) blogs and helping grow an active community around them. The experience I’ve gained here at Yahoo! has been invaluable, and I will continue to work with my friends here at Yahoo! on new features for BNET.com (a RightMedia publisher).

It’s been great learning and growing with the publishing community, and I wanted to thank you for all the great feedback. Even the occasional ribbing was informative.

Cheers!

—Michael Mattis

And End-of-Year Tribute

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the transistor. Invented at New Jersey’s Bell Labs in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, the transistor is essentially an electric on/off switch without any moving parts. It is the fundamental building block of the microprocessors now making this conversation possible. Without the transistor, we would likely never have put men on the moon, built a lightweight and affordable electronic calculator, played Pong, developed mobile telephony, or created the Internet.

The original transistors were large, balky things that gave off incredible heat and burnt out every few days. Today’s transistors are solid state, and as many as one billon of them can fit onto a single microprocessor smaller than your fingernail. In fact, each of these modern marvels has thousands of times more computing power than the computers on board the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

Most salient to the readers of this blog, the transistor has allowed virtually anyone with a computer and an idea to publish and have their thoughts and be heard as never before.

The ’Net’s Founding Fathers
It has been said that we are all dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. Well, we’d like to take this opportunity for an end-of-year salute to some of the giants who have helped bring this new world to life:

Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type printing press (1455) made possible more rapid transmission of information and ideas.

Blaise Pascal’s adding machine (1642) inspired future computing devices.

J.M. Jacquard’s loom (1800) was controlled by punch cards that made it possible to weave complex patterns. An early form of data storage, these punch cards set the stage for the punch-card computing of the mid-20th century. Do not fold, spindle or mutilate!

Charles Babbage’s “difference engine” (1835) was a mechanical computer. Although it didn’t go very far, it inspired future efforts. Babbage’s assistant, Ada Lovelace, is credited with documenting the first software programs or “routines.”

Christopher Shole’s typewriter (1868) gave us the odd-ball “QWERTY” keyboard that persists to this day. Now you know who to blame.

John Fleming’s vacuum tube (1905) made possible radio, TV and computers.

Vannevar Bush’s mechanical “differential analyzer” (1930) was an analog computer. He also theorized the memex, a proto-hypertext computer system, and pushed for more technology funding.

John Eckert and John Mauchly’s ENIAC computer boasted 20,000 vacuum tubes. It was said that the lights in Philly dimmed when it was switched on. Later, the duo invented the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC, which could pick winners in political races based on raw data.

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and Wiliam Shockley’s transistor (1947) rendered the vacuum tube obsolete in one fell swoop.

Douglas Engelbart’s computer “mouse” (1964-8) and “windows” will one day make computing much easier, and made Steve Jobs and Bill Gates rich beyond their wildest dreams of avarice. Engelbart also invented an early hypertext system, among other innovations. 

Charley Kline and Leonard Kleinrock’s first data transmissions from UCLA over ARPANET (1969) laid the foundations for the Internet.

Robert Metcalf’s Ethernet (1973) made connected computing a breeze.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (1989) and changed the world forever.

Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina’s Mosaic web browser (1993) let people surf the Web with ease.

Jerry Yang and David Filo’s Yahoo! (1994) started out as two guys cataloguing websites in a trailer on Stanford campus. The rest is, as they say, history.

And, lastly, let’s not forget You, the pioneering publisher who is creating cutting-edge, multimedia content for the wide audience on the Web.

Salut!

—The Team

Our U.S. Customer Solutions team will have Christmas Day and New Years Day off.

They will also enjoy reduced hours December 24 (open 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) and December 31 (also open 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.).

 Happy Holidays.

—The Team

Supporting Material for Your Blog

A nifty new WordPress plug-in lets WordPress bloggers use Yahoo! content to support their bloggery. When you’re composing a blog post in the WordPress admin interface, the Yahoo! Shortcuts beta plug-in automagically begins matching terms in your post to Yahoo! aggregated content, such as company names, stock tickers, map locations, news, product names and Flickr photos.

You decide whether to keep or reject any (or all) recommended shortcuts before your post goes live. When you publish, your selected shortcuts appear in your post according to the format you choose. It’s very cool.

For more info, check out this post on the Y! Search Blog and definitely have a look at the tutorial. 

—Michael Mattis

Your Opinion Counts

We’re hosting a survey to find out more about your needs in order to help us build a better blog. All information we gather is secure and strictly confidential.

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW; it’s easy and free.

—The Team

Editor’s Note: I met Stephanie Agresta last month at the BlogWorld Expo in Vegas—the girl’s got a wicked craps toss, I can tell you—where she spoke on the panel, “Bloggers and Online Merchants: Affiliate Marketing Synergies.” With more than 12 years of experience in online marketing, Stephanie has survived plenty of Cyber Mondays.

As we noted in a previous post, joining an affiliate program and negotiating direct ad sales can be great ways to boost your publishing revenue. Well, I learned that from Stephanie. For you publishers who are combining an affiliate program and direct ads with your Yahoo! Publisher Network ads Stephanie offers up ten survival tips to help get you through the holidays and into the black.

“Cyber Monday” has come and gone. While many news outlets focused on the “big bang” in sales that this day is supposed to represent (like its offline sister, “Black Friday”), online sales have grown at steady and steep rates each year for a decade. For 2007, initial reports point to even better-than-expected growth in the run-up to the holidays. More money for online advertisers means more revenue for publishers. Time to pop the Veuve Clicquot! 

But as anyone who has been in e-commerce for the last 10 years knows, with all this growth comes more competition and more stress for marketers. Consumer expectations are higher, there are more advertisers to choose from and manage, and—of course—there is significantly more competition (and expense) to secure those precious eyeballs! What is an online publisher to do?

Here are a few quick tips to help you navigate this hectic time. If you can keep these guidelines in mind, you may come out of the holiday season full of good cheer.

10. Speak with your audience and keep them top of mind. It is so easy to get caught up in the holiday hubbub and forget the basics. As a publisher, the most valuable tactic you can use is to stay focused on your readers and ask for their feedback. Start a conversation.

One simple idea is to create a holiday gift guide that suggests great ideas that you think they will love and asks for their product recommendations. If you’re a blogger, comments from readers can be a wealth of information on top-selling products and great content for future posts.

9. It’s all about the data. Set weekly and monthly goals for your affiliate commissions and contextual ad revenue, and run reports more frequently. Look at the numbers more closely and stay in tune with sales trends. Daily review of activity is a necessary component to making the season a success.

8. Stay on top of cultural trends. Who knows more about cultural trends than Oprah? As many of the pundits have pointed out, her annual list drives a huge number of online purchases. Tune into this and other trend-spotters now and throughout the year. If you aren’t already reading the Trend Watching briefings, sign up ASAP!

7. Read More Blogs. Does it sound crazy that, at the busiest time of the year, I am suggesting that you dedicate more time to reading blogs? Well, reading other thought leaders has a way of inspiring me. For online publishers who seek to increase their revenue, immerse yourself in the writings of Shawn Collins, Lisa Picarille, Sam Harrelson and Jim Kukral (in addition to this fabulous Yahoo! Publisher Network blog). You won’t be sorry.

6. Update your website with holiday images. Seems like an obvious one, but it is always a good reminder for busy publishers. Seasonal images help drive sales. Imagine shopping in an offline store that had no decorations up for the holidays. BORING!

5. Reach out to your top advertisers. This is always a tough one for some publishers. As someone who has been on the advertiser side for years, I cherish online publishers who take the time to make personal contact and share specifics about their site and the demographics they work with. It always helps to have a real person to contact with questions, so take time to make sure your top partners know who you are.

4. Try new methods of reaching out. As a follow up to #5, I must remind you that email and IM are so 2006. If you don’t already have a Facebook profile or Twitter account, give it a try. While it may take some getting used to, you will find that many of your colleagues are already there, and communication becomes that much easier.

3. Check your data feeds (if you use them). Another simple reminder—but vital during this busy traffic season—is to make sure that your site is up to par: no broken links to advertiser sites. If you find an advertiser that has not done an update to its data feed in awhile, send a polite note asking them to provide you with the tools you need to sell their products.

2. Don’t forget the long tail. While Top 10 product lists are great, let’s not forget that this is a time of year when individuals go out of their way to find unique and special gifts. Spend time building out lists of keywords (including five-plus word keywords). If you do any online marketing, such as through Yahoo! Search Marketing, use these in your campaigns. Even if you don’t do any online marketing, be sure to sprinkle these keywords throughout your copy to help get your site more visible in organic search rankings.

1. Get in the spirit. Most importantly, take a moment to be thankful for your direct advertising partners, if you have any. Not only is it good karma, but it goes a long way to enhance your working relationship all year long. Snail mail, old-school holiday cards are wonderful, but e-cards or online videos work, too. Give to receive!

Don’t Forget: It’s not too late to still capture the holiday spirit and boost your sales online. Keep in mind that many gift advertisers register about 60 percent of their sales in the fourth quarter, the bulk of which is in December. Plus, January is a big month for most e-retailers—with all those gift cards burning holes in consumer pockets.

—Stephanie Agresta, Stephanie Agresta Consulting