Well, I’ve finally finished the advertisers page for the site.

Get em while they’re hot!

Now, lets talk about in this post how to sell private ad space on your website, personally, not through any other program.

To sell ads you have to have a demand for spots on your blog, to do this, build up traffic. Traffic is key, so provide traffic stats, such as Alexa rank, number of readers (ballpark figure), and anything else that would help say MY BLOG should be advertised on (you’ll note on mine since the blog is new accurate traffic stats are pending). An advertiser may buy adspace from you not only for the clicks but for the exposure to, more traffic will result in more exposure so that you can sell your ads for more as your traffic grows.

How to achieve greater traffic can be talked about for hours but in a nutshell, MARKETING. StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Digg and other social bookmarking, buying ad space such as Google Adwords, and anything else you do to promote your site (for example Entrecard).

With this I’d then start the pricing low, because if you price to high no one will buy ads from you. And hey three $5 ad purchases are better than charging $15 an ad and having them all sit empty because no one wants to buy them. Think about it, start small then grow when you know that there is a demand for the product (the space) you’re selling.

Also, network around, do you know someone who would benefit from being on your blog? Ask them to sponsor an ad and grow a partnership with them.

Remember the adspace is geared for users, so make sure not to have your blog plastered in ads no one likes a website where they have to stare at ads all day, make your ads compliment your site, you CAN be greedy with your adspace. In the end it hurts you as it drives customers and users away from your site.

Time frames are also important, you want to have a time frame that won’t keep the advertiser locked in for to long but allows them to get an accurate feel of your sites potential for them. In my case I chose a month, for you it’s a personal choice. I like a month because its long enough to judge if something is working or not, while a week is a bit to short.

Finally, you can always give away an ad spot or two as a reciprocal or part of a contest. What this does is it shows the person you give it to for the time period that it’s a investment worth having, and when the time expires maybe they will actually BUY one from you.