As I have been working with Text Link Ads on my other website I’ve sold 8 out of 10 links, each time a link sells I contemplate increasing the price. After 4 links sold at $65 dollars I increased the price to $85 after 2 more links sold at $85 I have now increased the price to $100.

What happens is I only have 10 spots so its truly the old saying supply and demand, my supply is depleting so people want the links more.

After the article I wrote about if my links are under priced I noticed the site I referenced lowered their prices. I wonder if it has to do with me? Probably not, but you never know? I also noticed that text link ads are accepting blogger.com websites, now although I am not against blogger.com and free blogging websites. I am against having them in text link ads or places that calculate your ALEXA ranking in their ratings.

If you are going to include them place n/a or give them a zero rating. There is no way to tell if they are going to be a ranking of 15 really if they had their own site or 1.5 Million. What unnerved me was the fact that a blogger.com website was in the top 25 tla sites. Now granted my ranking isn’t the highest of the bunch but if I had to compete with blogger websites it will drastically reduce my chances. So I emailed, I protested the fact that blogger site is the #1 spot that it wasn’t fair and they said they are going to do something to remedy this situation very soon. I appreciated the response but the fact is the possibility more sales are given to that person who got luck, and not someone else who worked hard to deserve their Alexa ranking. Well it bothers me, since what if it were me who is at spot #26?

The power of the link is very important. Making sure you understand and do your research and don’t over price yourself. Each time I raised my price I did it in small bits. The first time I raised it by $20 dollars, and then the second I’ve raised it by $15 earning myself a total of $35 dollars more per link. I am still waiting for the sites to have their spider crawl and offer links in my posts so I can make more since TLA does take A LOT out of your amount. I mean I am greatful since I wouldn’t have found the advertisers any other way I just wish it weren’t so much.

Some of my readers are only in review me, which means unless someone finds you in the market place you’re sunk. Occasionally you’ll get those notices for $5 dollar reviews, I’ve gotten some for $25 dollar reviews. So if you’re in a crunch and trying to make a couple of extra bucks well here is a trick for review me people:

CHANGE YOUR CATEGORY! — Different categories mean different offers. Once I started playing around with the multiple categories, such as auto’s (for the just for dads section) I ended up seeing 5 different offers. Granted they were only $5 dollars however thats $25 dollars extra in my pocket I didn’t have before.

Don’t rely on one program.

Try: loudlaunch.com, payperpost.com, sponsoredreviews.com, smorty.com, blogsvertise.com, reviewme.com and there are dozens of others.

As I visit a lot of website I’ve noticed that ads galore are all over your site. Its okay in a sense if you’re using multiple companies, however if you are using one company you want to have your CTR (click thru rate) high and your impressions vs. clicks high. The more ads shown the more CPM shown granted, but the less clicks per impressions.

What happens is lets say for example I’ve been using Yahoo Ads. And I look around their site they even say not to place too many ads up since you’ll be showing the same text ads and it will just decrease your CTR VS. CPM

Some places pay based on CPM so hey if you get stuck with a place like I have based on CPM then by all means put your ads all over the place! But really don’t spam your visitors though.

On Pajama Mommy which is my main money maker, I use Yahoo Ads! I also had azoogle which was crap since no one ever bought any, if it works for you great it didn’t work for me. Heck, my own mother forgot to sign up through my azoogle ad which I lost out on a $52 commission :|

On the site I place one ad on top, main view and I’ve received a dozen clicks already from it.
Then on the side bar I place my Text Link Ads sponsored links, Sponsored Review banner, and a Job Board widget.

As you can see its the only way I monetize the site. On the forum for Pajama Mommy I however place the ads on both top and bottom maximizing the views. Which brings down the CPM Yes but unlike the website the forum has more things on the bottom for people to actually go down and read. Not everyone will read the entire front page of a blog but they will sift through forums.

I’ve been sitting here thinking to myself hmm Pajama Mommy is getting more and more popular but I’m not making a whole lot.

I’ve made $62 dollars on TLA for Pajama Mommy.

Which doesn’t seem like a lot but hey when you get that money coming in from a variety of sources all into your paypal account at the same time boy does it add up!

However, I’ve been thinking to myself when should I raise my prices. Pajama Mommy is a baby blog and a parenting blog to begin with so I of course scoped out the competition. I displayed it going via alexa ranking and noticed that the other competition I have thats a domain with low Alexa sells her ads at the standard $15 to start and has sold 3/8 spots available.

Seeing as thats not helping me I section it now by price. I am the 2nd highest priced website in the Baby section at $65 a link, the highest is another website that charges $150 dollars a link.

What do you get for $150 dollars:
5/10 Page rank
400K Alexa Ranking

plus marks: the ad will be displayed on over 1,000 pages.

What you get for $65 dollars:

6/10 Page Rank
76K Alexa Ranking
Ad shown on over 200 pages.

Now with my ranks alone compared to other website I should be higher. However the number of pages the ad being shown on is rough on me. Typically TLA and other places prefer the links to be on just one page. However, if I am an advertiser I want my link showing up everywhere so they finally say FINE I WILL CLICK YOU! correct? I don’t know if thats good marketing or I’m an idiot but thats how I like to get it. However I feel I should raise it.

I know a lot of other people are going through the problems, so I contacted TLA and said hey do you think you could recommend a new price for me since my rankings have been up they basically said if you want to raise it you have to tell us what to raise it to. This was not helpful, I just wanted a re-evaluation of the price of my links if it should be up even if only by $1 just a bit of information on their point of view, since they of course are the professionals. I wish I was given more help as I know many of you do. So basically I learned this from all of it:

Do thorough research, every possible keyword you can think of surf it and try to find competition. See why they are selling, what their PR is, ALEXA and how many pages do they have on their site. If you have less then try to make more! It could be one of the reasons of why you are not selling as many. Don’t lie about the pages but don’t under price yourself either. If you feel your site deserves more and no one is willing to re-evaluate do it yourself.

Looking at it, I felt my site should be at $85 my rank blasted over 40,000 spots since I was originally added. My links are starting to sell. So I will wait about a week or so let my ranking improve and ask for an increase and see how that goes. It’s only $20 dollars more so its not a huge step up but still its a decent up start.

Also change your categories every now and then, once I played around with the categories and keywords I sold 3 more links!