The Worth of a Text Link Ad
DISCLAIMER- I have done no research on Text Link Ads before this one because these are my personal experiences. Enough has already been written about link ads and this post is about how much they are effective. The blog and names have been omitted to respect their privacy.
Advertising is all about innovations and how much you can offer your advertisers in the minimum possible price. Innovation comes into picture when you offer your potential clients an advertising spot that has not been considered before seriously but will still get them more traffic that usual ad spots. And to an extent, I consider Text Link Ads an innovative ad spot.
WHY SO?
It is because few years ago, one smart blogger took the initiative by removing the Blogroll from his sidebar and offering the advertiser’s link there for a cheap price. And he was right there. After all, when you have a blog with high readership and good daily traffic, you will sure like to monetize every bit of it. He introduced this concept and bloggers all around the world adopted it.
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
Of course, there is no big deal. But I recently did an experiment with link ads and found out a bit of bitter truth about it- leaving aside big bloggers like Darren Rowse and Yaro Stark, the link ads are not worth the money you put in them.
HERE’S WHAT I DID?
One of my blogger friends had a blog with good number of visits every day. His traffic was increasing at a good pace. To get maximum advantage, he started advertising in his blog and I must say his prices were much less than the usual blogs among his traffic range. A few months later, he started serving link ads for $7.
As he was my friend, I asked him for a place at link ads for free for one of my blogs which was a month old but updated each and every day (from a completely different niche). At that moment, it was not a case study. Instead I wanted some exposure to my blog. He agreed to give me that space for a month. I was pretty happy that I will get regular traffic from his blog.
Alas, it never happened. I do not say that it never sent me some traffic. But I never got what I expected. In 30 days, I received around 75 visits which I thought would be unfair to those who will spend their $7.
I mailed him my experience and he did listen to me and obliged me by reducing its price to $5. From then till now (it’s been 2 months or more), his prices have not changed for link ads.
MY VERDICT
Traffic was less may be because the niche was not related to anything profitable but still I expected more from it. After all, every advertiser (from any niche) should get their investment back.
You are most welcome share your good and bad experiences regarding link ads below. If anyone has something interesting to tell to the blogosphere, do send us a guest post through this page.
Article Written By Tushar
Tushar is a 23 year old blogger from Dehradun, India giving blogging tips in his blog BloggersPassion which has become a widely read blog in this niche in small period of time. To know more about him, visit the About Me pageTushar has written 97 superb article(s) on this blog
July 31, 2010
11:02 pm
Text links are bought for SEO rather than to get traffic.
July 31, 2010
11:09 pm
i agree man but u sure want your money to atleast fetch some traffic….SEO advantage can also be gained by commenting….although not that affective but still ok
August 1, 2010
11:25 am
Text Links Are only useful for backlink and its worth if the Link is Dofollow + The Site has High PR … and i feel text links will never generate high amount of traffic
Lucifer | Blog Is Blogging´s last blog ..How To Verify Facebook Account – Remove Captcha
August 1, 2010
6:56 pm
I think, It is not wise to buy and sell links. When you adsense ON. People who has large sums of money can do this by buying 100 links from different websites. So, friend try doing some more research or ask big bloggers. Follow what they say.
August 1, 2010
11:31 pm
Textlinks are always useful in case of SEO.But I don’t think that it will help you to get traffic regularly.
Lakhyajyoti´s last blog ..7 Things You Should Know To Write a Killer Article
August 2, 2010
1:06 pm
@Tushar, when you buy text link it appears on almost all the page of blog/website. By commenting one may not be able to achieve that.
August 3, 2010
5:03 pm
@puneet
You are right dude. But onething.. “Single links are more powerful than sitewide links”. This is a proven fact. and that is the reason why most of the professionals do guest posts other than link exchange.
Jijo Sunny´s last blog ..OMG! Thesis Theme Official Website DIYthemescom is Hacked
August 4, 2010
7:54 pm
@Sunny I agree with you, that single links are more powerful than sitewide links. But buying a link on a PR 4-5 blog is good for those who want to gain better SERPs without much efforts and for those who do not want to publish their content on their own blogs only.
August 8, 2010
1:35 pm
In my view all type of links is good. This is possible true that links from article has more weight then side links from any blog. But you should gather as many as possible if you are serious for blogging. Finally they will be beneficial for your blogging and brings you more traffic.
Rahul (Price In India)´s last blog ..Kaspersky Virtual Keyboard How To Use
September 2, 2010
12:24 pm
As long as getting huge traffic frequently isn’t your main objective when placing link ads, then I guess it’s okay to do so, but of course, find a good price for it.
Felicia @ No Deposit Poker´s last blog ..Full Tilt Poker- Erik Sagstrom is not Din-Fru