If you run a WordPress blog, advertisement is going to be one of your sources of income. However, to make the most money possible, you need to understand the different kinds of WordPress ad options available.
Running a website is the same as running a business. Your goal is to make money, and properly utilizing all of the tools at your disposal is crucial.
However, the majority of new web developers do not understand all of the options they have available. This blog will describe the various ad choices you can use to increase profits.
WordPress.com Vs. WordPress.org
The first and most important part of placing ads in WordPress is to make sure you are on the right platform. There are many differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. One of these differences involves how advertisements work.
WordPress.com: WordPress.com is a free platform that allows you to create a website. However, you cannot place an advertisement on your website at the start. Instead, you need to sign up for WordAds and follow the instructions.
WordPress.org: WordPress.org is a self-hosted website that you are in control of. For this reason, you can immediately place an advertisement anywhere on your website.
While some of these tips may be helpful for WordPress.com users, this guide will be focused on WordPress.org site owners.
WordPress Ad Options
There are multiple types of options available when it comes to WordPress. These include pay-per-click, cost-per-thousand, flat rate and affiliate ads.
Trying to utilize as many as possible without it affecting the viewing pleasure of your content is the main goal.
There are multiple tools that can help you do this. Many WordPress advertising plugins are free to use and can help you properly manage your advertisement options.
Beware of Ad Block
Unfortunately, when the internet was still relatively new, some websites have gone too far with ads. They flood pages with both banner and loud video ads, which impact load times and have multiple pop-ups.
For this reason, many internet users want to avoid ads and they have found their solution. Multiple Ad Blocking extensions and software are now available for people to use. Even worse, these are typically free.
Obviously, if visitors cannot see your ads, you cannot generate income from them. To fight back against this you can set up your website to detect and prevent ad block, but this might drive more visitors away from your website.
They Can Still Help
While you would earn zero ad revenue from those who use ad blockers, advertisements can still benefit your website. For example, if someone with ad blocker reads your blog and then shares it with hundreds of friends, you are gaining a lot of traffic.
For this reason, I recommend only detecting ad blocker and having a message display. This message should try to explain that ads pay your bills and it would be great if they would whitelist you.
1. Pay-Per-Click Ads
Without a doubt, pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC) ads are the most popular choice. These ads are simple to understand. An ad is displayed on your website and every time a visitor clicks on it, you get paid.
Pros: Thanks to the simple nature of this model both the website displaying the ads and the advertiser paying to display the ads get something in return. The website displaying the ad gets paid while the advertiser gains traffic from the click.
Thus the advertiser is only paying when they get results, and website owners reap the rewards. However, this system is not perfect.
Cons: It is no secret that visitors do not like seeing ads. For this reason, they go out of their way to avoid them. As a result, the Ad Blocker tool has become extremely popular. If a visitor cannot see the ad, they cannot click on it.
On top of this, websites with a low amount of traffic will have fewer chances for ad clicks. There is also the issue of displaying ads the website’s target audience is not interested in.
Google AdSense
One of the most influential and profitable advertisement programs is Google AdSense. As you may have guessed, it is run by Google, which knows a thing or two about advertisement. This program does the work for you by picking out relevant ads to display on your website.
This ensures that every visitor will see ads that are relevant to them, which means they are more likely to click. However, you still have full control over what pages they appear on and where the ads are displayed on that page.
Google AdSense should be one of the first programs that WordPress developers sign up for.
2. Cost-Per-Thousand Ads
For websites that get a lot of traffic on their pages, the cost-per-thousand (CPT) or cost-per-mile (CPM) is a great option. Instead of relying on a visitor to click on an ad, you get paid for the number of times they are displayed on your website.
Pros: This method does not rely on the visitor’s interactions with the ads you display. This makes it ideal for websites with high traffic. Your revenue is simply determined by how many visitors see the ad. In most cases, this is by thousands of views.
Cons: To have success with this model, you first need to have a high-traffic website. This is not an easy thing to accomplish and can take years to obtain. On top of this, if you compared the results to a PPC model, you will find that the CPT model is inferior in making money on a website the same size.
You will certainly earn more money with the first ad option, but many websites find this to be a successful model to follow.
3. Flat-Rate Ads
A flat-rate ads model is simple to understand. An advertiser will pay you a fixed sum of money to display their ad on your website. This means that it doesn’t matter how many people see it or click on it, you get paid. It is extremely simple but very lucrative.
Pros: This is without a doubt the simplest of WordPress ad options to understand, and the best part is it works well with either of the previous models. Unlike the other options we have discussed, you will know exactly how much money you will receive.
Receiving a fixed amount of income makes it much easier to expand your business vs receiving an amount that varies. To maximize profits, utilizing different advertisement programs is essential to increasing your income and this model fully supports it.
Cons: As you may have guessed, advertisers will typically pay websites with high traffic. While you may have zero risks on delivering results, advertisers are unlikely to pay a low-traffic website.
On the flip side, if your website explodes in popularity overnight, you cannot earn any additional money from these ads. While this isn’t common, it is certainly something to consider.
While it is common to combine this model with others, most advertisers will not pay you a fixed amount and allow you to display a competitor’s product. For example, it wouldn’t make much sense for McDonald’s to pay a fixed rate, while you are displaying Burger King ads.
This can make it more complicated when selecting which ads to display.
4. Affiliate Ads
Affiliate ads and marketing are extremely profitable. An advertiser will provide you with an affiliate link or a unique link that contains your referral ID. Whenever a visitor clicks on the link and completes a purchase, you will be compensated a small portion.
Pros: Affiliate ads can fit into almost any blog topic with good writing. You can easily select products that your audience will be interested in. On top of the sales commission, you can typically earn rewards or promotional money when starting out in an affiliate program.
Affiliate links can be inserted directly into text or a video’s description with relative ease. Some companies will even offer your visitors exclusive discounts which make it easier to get your visitors to buy them.
Cons: This is the most involved type of advertisement for visitors. Not only do visitors need to see the link and click on it, but they also need to make a purchase. If you thought it was difficult to get them to click, wait until you try to get them to buy a product or service.
To make the most out of affiliate ads, you need to understand what your audience is interested in. Obviously, this will take a lot of research on your part but can be easier for other websites.
For example, if you run a video game blog, offering affiliate links for gaming accessories like controllers or microphones is a no brainer.
However, what products do you offer if you have a blog with a lot of topics? That takes research and analytics to figure out.
What Number of Ad Options Should I Use
There are quite a few types of WordPress ad options, and if you think you need to select the best one for your website, you are wrong. For the most part, the best choice is to select a combination of ad options.
As long as you make sure the ads on your website do not seem invasive or interrupt the content in any way, the more you can show, the better. combining different types of advertisement is easy to do.
For example, consider the following scenario.
Let’s say you have a high traffic website that has a PPT model as the main source of ads. On top of this, mixing in affiliate links and ads can make it seem seamless and have little impact on the visitors. Of course, you may be able to strike up a deal for a flat rate advertising deal on your homepage.
This scenario utilized 3 different options, and there are plenty of other combinations.
Do Not Pester Visitors With Ads
While it makes perfect sense to want visitors to interact with ads so you can make money, it can really work against you. Extremely invasive ads have resulted in many internet users utilizing Ad Blockers, which nets you zero income.
While having a lot of ads to generate more income is important, not having any visitors is a bigger issue. It is strongly recommended that you display relevant ads that do not interfere in your content in any way. Using Google AdSense in WordPress is a great way to accomplish this.
Which WordPress ad options are your favorite? How many WordPress ad options do you plan on using?