Define "big guns" as I've been selling direct ads for years.

You do need some significant traffic, but 10K visitors a day is more than enough to start selling your own ads.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

We have near 100K visitors per day and we haven't sold direct ads except in few cases.

It changes all the time but right now Casale is working well for us and Chitika.

You need to set up a page for advertisers to contact you. I've been selling advertising like that for years and we just go back and forth via email and then they pay via paypal. I've done deals like this with Fortune 100 companies and with small shops. No one has ever complained. If you start doing lots this way then move to a product like Google has for managing ad inventory. Point is, you can keep it simple and no one minds.

Adsense is still the king for us but PubCenter definitely has good potential for the future.

Our affiliate sales have fallen tremendously since March so we aren't even split testing affiliate links right now.

Hope this helps
Sam

@incrediBILL & @Samanthatouch

Thanks for the input.

Good questions (First, openx current versions not stable enough to use, IMO, no support. I'd use Openx but go back to at least 2.6 vers family)

I'm not interested in direct ad sales, but I never close off possibiliites. I'd do it if someone asked and it fit one of the niched we work in, and I've had the infrastructure to do this for years.

The options depend on your skills and abilities. I commend the idea of your own "products". We've shifted, over the last two years, our revenue away from adsense and to sales, so that we've gone from a 60-70% for adsense and 30-40 for our products to the other way round. We now make the majority of our money from our sales. But then I'm a writer, and the products are professional level that could and are published through huge publishing firms.

We're releasing a new book (this one's self -published, but we just had a world wide release via a major publisher in December), and expect it to be lucrative in e-format.

We look for those special offerings that once in a while offer the "perfect fit". Came across one of those and raked in a cool extra 1700 in one month.

But we've known for a good two years that adsense revenue HAD to drop, would drop., and we've been preparing for a long time.

We've also set up a self serve article reprint service so magazines, and corpororate clients could purchase rights immediately with no paper work. Previously, we had no infrastructure to do this and usually just gave free permssion.

What I do NOT do. I don't chase traffic any more, at least not much. I chase personal branding (my name). I don't churn out tons of content. I don't SEO. I don't fiddle around with the colors of ads, or placement. In fact I'm just setting all of them to plain blue. I don't worry what I make on adsense on a day to day basis.

I'm always testing our own inhouse ads.

I've always been in for the long haul, and plan accordingly, so while I ain't happy with the economy and adsense drops, I am holding the line, and know that I'll find a way to rebound again. I've been thru the bubbles/bursts. THings come, things go.

..and I eat a lot of cat food cause that's all I can afford.

I'd use Openx but go back to at least 2.6 vers family

Considering OpenX 2.6 versions had SQL injection and other vulnerabilities, I'd be careful using outdated software.

I chase personal branding (my name). I don't churn out tons of content. I don't SEO.

That's the same classic mistake many of my clients make.

If you don't have any keywords driving traffic to your site, and we don't know your name, how will anyone find your site in the first place?

Obviously there's that PPC but you burn money for what would otherwise be free income, there has to be a middle ground of PPC and SEO to make it make sense.

I burn $0 on advertising, it's all free traffic thanks to very targeted SEO so it's all 100% income.

What most people overlook is when you run AdSense, the ads displayed on your site are a window into the soul of Google, the ads tell you how Google sees your site. Therefore, when your SEO is done correctly, and the ad targeting is dead on the money, you'll get as much free traffic as you can eat.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 4:42 am (utc) on June 7, 2009]

What most people overlook is when you run AdSense, the ads displayed on your site are a window into the soul of Google, the ads tell you how Google sees your site. Therefore, when your SEO is done correctly, and the ad targeting is dead on the money, you'll get as much free traffic as you can eat.

One of the most pertinent paragraphs about adsense I've ever seen ..

IncrediBILL> What most people overlook is when you run AdSense, the ads displayed on your site are a window into the soul of Google, the ads tell you how Google sees your site.

That resonates with my experience too. I hope the conclusion does too in course of time :)

BTW: The same observation however does not apply to Google PR. I have seen a site with PR 3 which gets 10 million page impressions per month, I personally verified.

If you don't have any keywords driving traffic to your site, and we don't know your name, how will anyone find your site in the first place?

Coachm didn't say anything about hiding keywords from search engines. :-)

On my own site, the only SEO that I do is the kind in the Google Webmaster Guidelines--"design sites for users," employ descriptive page titles and headlines, etc. That hardly qualifies as SEO because it's what I'd do if external search engines didn't exist. (The reader who's digging through a table of contents for information on "jelly doughnuts" doesn't want to waste time figuring out whether "fruity pillows of dough" is code for "jelly doughnuts" or has to do with fruit-filled bedding.) So far, this "non-SEO" SEO strategy has worked quite nicely, and my site ranks in the top 10 (often in the top 5 or even number 1) for phrases that yield millions of results in Google.

As for alternatives to AdSense, my site does well with display ads from a vertical ad network (which generate more revenue than AdSense does) and affiliate links (ditto). Whether display ads and affiliate programs are workable options depends on your industry, your traffic, and your audience. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out what works and what doesn't, but that's okay if you're in the Web-publishing business for the long haul.

Coachm didn't say anything about hiding keywords from search engines. :-)

Who said anything about hiding keywords?

He said he was branding for his name and not doing SEO, if you don't know his name you'll never find him in the first place without a little SEO unless you're burning PPC money.

The internet isn't Cheers and everybody doesn't know your name.

Considering OpenX 2.6 versions had SQL injection and other vulnerabilities, I'd be careful using outdated software.

Not many webmasters know how to learn of vulnerabilities with software (especially plugins and templates) they use. To find out if web software or plugins that you use have holes just search for them at milw0rm (that's a zero not an o). For example, the OpenX issue mentioned above is explained there.

If you are using any "Web 2.0" technology in your website, you need to keep an eye on the security of the software that you use. Believe me, the bad guys look at Milw0rm everyday.

Don't mean to take this thread off course but it's an important tip.

Sam

Who said anything about hiding keywords?

That's what SEO means to some people. We've seen so many spams and website ads promising to "increase SEO" and we know that means using hidden keywords and oher tricks. So when some people refer to SEO they mean spending hours trying to figure out how to fool the Google algorithm.

But that doesn't mean we're oblivious to the way search engines work. I just stick with the basics, like page title, relevant picture titles, etc. It's more like Search Engine "Compatibility" than "Optimization"

Who said anything about hiding keywords?

Bill, I was responding to "

If you don't have any keywords driving traffic to your site, and we don't know your name, how will anyone find your site in the first place?

Unless coachm was doing his best to avoid using relevant keywords in his titles, headlines, and text (which would be a highly unlikely scenario), it's reasonable to assume that he'd be getting traffic from search engines simply as a result of designing his site for users.

Coachm's reference to personal branding does bring up an interesting point: Many Webmasters are so busy trying to rank for "fuzzy blue widgets" or "mesothelioma" that they don't look at the bigger picture. When I see a search result headed "Fuzzy blue azure cobalt indigo cornflower widgets," I have little incentive to click on it. I'm more likely to click on a result that suggests a real site ("Fuzzy Blue Widgets - Widget Reviews Magazine") or that carries a brand name that I recognize("Fuzzy Blue Widgets - Wikipedia, the free encylopedia" or, if Coachm has done his job, "Fuzzy Blue Widgets - Coachm's Widget Central"). People like Phil Askey (Digital Photography Review), Rick Steves (the guidebook author and TV travel guru), Philip Greenspun (Photo.net), and our own Brett Tabke (Webmaster World) have succeeded in creating their own brands and reputations in a world that's supposedly dominated by major corporations. The Web publisher who thinks beyond "How do I rank for "fuzzy blue widget fasteners" or "What color should I make my AdSense ad borders" is likely to build a more valuable brand--and to have more "AdSense alternatives"--than the publisher who focuses on mechanics at the expense of brand, reputation, and content.

He said he was branding for his name and not doing SEO, if you don't know his name you'll never find him in the first place without a little SEO unless you're burning PPC money.

The internet isn't Cheers and everybody doesn't know your name.

True, for most people. But, a lot of people know my name, and I said don't DO SEO, but that isn't to say I haven't DONE it.

I write for readers. I try to follow decent webpage design principles (but I don't try as hard as I should).

The point about the value of looking at adsense to get an idea of what the pages "look" like makes sense on the surface, but I don't have much faith in it NOW. The past, yes., but not now because of the way google chooses ads, since the criteria is NOT how well the ad fits your content, but how well google predicts the ad will be clicked on PLUS the bid.

I think Incredibill's thought on this is really a misconception that sounds good but is actually wrong enough to be misleading.

Finally, I've figured out that I'm in the minority in terms of adsense users anyway. I don't run an adsense based business. I had a pre-existing business, and it's all integrated together.

And hence the branding concept which only works if you have a real business rather than an adsense based approach. Eg. I write a book, I build a support website mentioned in the book. It sells 50,000 copies worldwide, let's say. That's a lot of potential site visitors, referral potential. I speak at a conference, I give my relevant website out, and oddly enough, it's not been uncommon for me to speak and have people come up to me and tell me how much they liked my website -- that they found it and came to see me because of the site.

I am in this position because I have intentionally created it over 10 years. I'm a long haul thinking kind of guy.

You can do a lot if you have a real business. WIthout a business (and if you add little value), there's just the basic ad formats and systems.

PS As for openx6 family, it's a tradeoff. 2.8 just had a critical vulnerability fixed, there will be more.

A software version that doesn't work (and 2.8 and 2.81 have serious problems) is a software version that doesn't work so security isn't an issue. I can't possibly see how anyone can use openx 2.8 family for displaying ads from direct advertisers. Stats can be broken, probability is messed up so bad that you don't always know what is going to be shown, and then you have to explain to the advertisers that you don't actually KNOW how many will be displayed next week?

Nuh uh. The future is promising if they get their heads on straight, since there's more cool stuff planned. Also, good to remember that 2.8 is NOT an update to the 2.6 family, it's more like a fork. 2.6 was recently updated/patched I believe.

signor:

We were typing at the same time. Well put. Good examples, too. You made the case better than I could on branding.

I think Incredibill's thought on this is really a misconception that sounds good but is actually wrong enough to be misleading.

I'm not sure how it could be a misconception because I've been doing it for years and I don't allow the interest based ads, only ads based on my content.

Besides, I now use Webmaster Tools as well, but AdSense was a good indicator of how Google saw your site before those tools existed.

I am in this position because I have intentionally created it over 10 years. I'm a long haul thinking kind of guy.

I too am a pre-AdSense guy, several of my sites date to '96 and '97, they're a brand on their own, but my point was and still is that people that don't know about your brand still need carefully crafted bread crumbs to make sure you get the lion's share of the traffic.

Nobody said you shouldn't write for people, but sometimes it's a very thinly veiled difference between getting crumbs or hitting the motherload.

For instance, if your widget was for plumbers and you only used the word plumbing in all your text you may get to your target audience yet miss the motherload of traffic with such a subtle difference.

At the end of the day it's all about working smart and not working hard ;)

[edited by: incrediBILL at 9:44 pm (utc) on June 7, 2009]

I'm not sure how it could be a misconception because I've been doing it for years and I don't allow the interest based ads, only ads based on my content.

Bill, my understanding is that you cannot opt out your visitors from receiving interest based ads. As with many google things there are different statements that conflict with each other. This is the one I looked at:

"However, you cannot opt out of showing ads to users based on their previous interactions with the advertiser, such as visits to an advertiser's website."

In any event, the bigger error you might be making has to do with how ads are served. There is a contextual component of course, but there's more to it. So you can't assume that the ads necessarily reflect how the whole of google sees the site.

And of course there's no guarantee anywhere that the same conclusions are drawn from the search engine as for serving ads.

It may appear to work (it appears to kinda work) but it's not something I'd recommend now. Before, maybe. Not now.

Other than that I suspect we agree, but use different words.

you cannot opt out your visitors from receiving interest based ads

Nope, it's an account setting.

In AdSense go to My Account -> Interest-based Ads Preference
"Do not show ads based on user interest categories. Visitation information from my sites will not be used to help create interest categories."

So you can't assume that the ads necessarily reflect how the whole of google sees the site.

Overall AdSense knows what your site is about but it also combines that knowledge with the specifics of each page, some pages run entirely different ads than others, and it's dead on the money for the page topic.

Bill, from the same pages

"However, you cannot opt out of showing ads to users based on their previous interactions with the advertiser, such as visits to an advertiser's website."

You have to read ALL of it.

"However, you cannot opt out of showing ads to users based on their previous interactions with the advertiser, such as visits to an advertiser's website."

You have to read ALL of it.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the ads I'm seeing on my own website, which I said I use as the window into the soul of Google.

I don't click any Google ads anywhere, therefore I'm not having any interactions with the advertiser so I don't see how that's relevant whatsoever to my perception of the ads appearing on my website.

I can see how it would alter the perception of what others see on my site, but no relevance to me.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the ads I'm seeing on my own website, which I said I use as the window into the soul of Google.

You're making too many assumptions, more in each response. It's likely that if you and I go to your site, we are not going to see the same ads. So which set is the "window"? Which one is "right"? Good, now multiply the possbilities by the number of visitors. What you say works in a simple system. This is not one.

I don't click any Google ads anywhere, therefore I'm not having any interactions with the advertiser so I don't see how that's relevant whatsoever to my perception of the ads appearing on my website.

Bill I have huge respect for you knowledge, but you (once again) have to read ALL of it. Interaction with an advertiser can mean visiting their site once. It's not limited to your having to click on their ad. In fact it wouldn't make sense to keep showing you the same ads you've clicked on over and over, would it.

I can see how it would alter the perception of what others see on my site, but no relevance to me.

THe problem is you believe what YOU see is "right" when there may be a million other things that other people see, so how does it tell you anything at all?

At best it will tell you whether google is presenting YOU with a particular set of things, but it says nothing about what it presents to me.

In other words, for it to mean anything you need at least a sample of the ads shown for a representative sampling of people visiting to draw much of a conclusion about how google sees your site.

(actually not even that works because of the black box.

Interaction with an advertiser can mean visiting their site once.

Without beating this like a dead horse (too late), all I'm saying is my ads are 100% on target, at least they are until Google changes something on an update and I spent the next week or two having them add more keywords into the negative filter.

Also, I can view the site via proxy servers, I see the same ads, and the proxy servers are 100% anonymous, my cookies and tracking are completely lost.

That's how I get clues about my site via AdSense, it's not just a single snapshot, it's many views from various anonymous locations around the world.

Thanks to everyone for your valuable input.

Special thanks to incrediBILL and coachm. I learned a lot from your discussions.