You might have a great site or one that businesses out there are looking to buy text links on. It could be your traffic, and it could be that your site fits the niche they are looking for. Selling links on your site can be tricky, especially if you are selling “in house” links (meaning you are doing this yourself instead of through third party places like Adbrite or Text Link Ads or others out there.
It is important to be smart about how you sell your links. A lot of people may want to buy spaces for site wide links or maybe even within some of your articles.
Set Your Price
You will be given offers and if your site is doing decent on traffic, sometimes even bundled link packages may not be the best price if you allow the buyer to make the choice. In the same breath, be fair and do not overcharge. If you are normally selling banner ad spaces or text links through third party sources, make sure to try to stay consistent with those prices.
Never Agree to Permanently Place A Link For However Long Your Site Exists
You should NEVER agree to sell links and allow them to remain on your site permanently. You are tying up your site with links and if your site’s traffic increases quite well over the span of a year, you should already be re-assessing the prices of both banner ads and text advertising. Offer packages in increments of 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months. If the client is good, maybe a year, but make that decision at your own discretion.
Some of the link buyers love to try to get in permanent link placement and in the end its a better deal for them when your site does well. Do not be fooled. They are eager to quick pay, and that may be enticing, but you need to think about it long term and not just in the now.
Make Sure You Have A Linking Policy In Place
If you prefer to offer Sponsored Links in posts, tell your buyer that. Create a special place that tells people it is a sponsored link and you can allow the client to put together a sentence with a keyword to help them.
If you do not have site wide ads and have specific pages or templates set for different ads, let the buyer know.
The whole point is to make sure you put in a policy that will not make your site look so filled with links and look spammy to your visitors.
Only Accept Relevant Ads To Your Site
If you accept ads that have nothing to do with your site, you might be opening up your site to more opportunities to spam. In doing this, you are basically not even concerned with your visitors and only with making money.
While making money on your site is great, if you are trying to establish more authority in your niche, your visitors would probably appreciate seeing ads that have greatly benefited your site. For example, for blogs about blogging, you might want to put up ads about SEO services or even Premium Themes for blogs. Another example would be for gaming sites to have ads about games, both online and for different types of gaming consoles out there.
These are merely a few suggestions on how to smartly sell text links on your site.
If you have any other suggestions, feel free to comment and share them.
Hi Nile,
Thanks for this information . I don;t know if I will be selling text link soon but this post will act as guideline for me when I do.
Thanks for sharing.
I think you make great points here especially about not permanently placing a link on your site. It is much better for you in the long run as your site gets more popular.
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Hi Nile,
Good to know how to sell text link and keep up good writing
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I agree with your point of considering for a long term and not just now because there is always a lot of unexpected result in the future.
And yes, you have to be careful with this – it might result in your blog looks spammy.
Nice tips – especially about reassessing link prices and ad relevancy. Even Google adsense is becoming a liability if over-used these days.
Nile – great tips. Personally, I've never sold ad space on my blog but I definitely think that you suggest a great strategic approach for those looking to sell ad space.
One of the things I can definitely agree with is that when selling ad space you should sell only ad space ads that are relevant to your over all site. I cant tell you how many times I've landed on sites that are about internet marketing yet they have ads about sports or health products, or something that is irrelevant. It just does not add to the overall message or brand that you are trying to promote and actually introduces some disconnect between the reader and how they perceive our message.
Definitely only sell ad space that is relevant!
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I think as far as text links are concerned relevancy is key. I think you other points are great as well, but I've seen far too many blogs where the text linking has gotten out of hand and the blogger is clearly in it for the money. At the end of the day to maintain your audience you have to espouse a certain level of integrity and to me too many irrelevant text links can really damage your credibility. (not to mention the readability of your page!)
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I am looking at adding sponsored links to our site and this is great information. I like placing time limits on links which gives me flexibility to change pricing and make more money. Great article.
Good tips but I would differ on one point, I "lease" links on my homepage for a set rate per month / 6 months / yearly…etc but if advertiser want to buy links in very old articles or even new ones, these should be permanent links. No in trying to track single in post links on a rotating basis as you would go crazy trying to keep up with it and would never likely get a renewal.
great points…a website policy is indispensable in every circumstance…especially here, when it’s coming to selling links..
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Accepting ads is nice but keeping track of when the ads need to be removed is a task that I have not mastered yet. If I place the ad into a plug-in that provides a disable date, that is great. But if the ad doesn't fit into the plug-in then I need to track it another way.
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Nice post and some of the best tips to work with…..
Good job Nile and keep it up
Some great thoughts there Nile. I remember a few years back, it was even more increasingly popular to offer text links for the life of a website. Bad choice. That could get sticky and difficult really quick! Imagine having a whole slew of websites that you have to keep on your site forever, even when you've gone global! Certainly wouldn't be fair to yourself in the long run.
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I am completely against selling links in websites.It hurt PR of my website in the past
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Interesting tips, I think the most important thing is to not clutter your site with too many paid links as you say, because as well as looking unprofessional it's easier for Google to class your site as spam.
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I never like to sell text links in my blog . But its good for the people who are into making money online
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i've tried to register but they are not accepting me for now..don't their reason, i have a good minimum traffic though
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One mistake which all newbie blogger does is they never keep a track of all sold paid link and even after completion of term..It stays live !!
It's always a good idea to remove such links after time expires or ask the advertiser to renew it with updated price…
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It never occurred to me that I can sell text links in my site as I have read lots of disadvantages in doing it and how it can threaten my site's ranking.
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I have read many blogs that says selling Link is not good.If you don't place them properly than it will look like a spam and Google can outrank your site.
If links are mingled with your post or website than you can earn from it and you don't have any afraid of Google's spam Ban.
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I heard,selling link is a bad thing.It can hurt our website ranking,PR of website and sometimes we can get banned by SE.So I am not agree to sell links on my website.
Hi,
Really Nice Tips for selling links.
Thanks For Sharing
Thanks for sharing you info.
Hi,
Really nice tips, especially about reassessing link prices and ad relevancy.I enjoyed reading it completely.
Thanks & best regards,
Sana
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thanks for these tips!
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You are highlighting a good point that normally web masters are not thinking of , offering permanent links. Normally web-site value rises as time goes on with the number of traffic goes up and the rank increases etc. Having permanent links you lose in the long run. Holiday sri lanka team
Considering text link ads. Was just approached to insert one in a blog post. Will find out more info. I’m finding resources for text link services vs. help in creating a policy or process for accepting link advertising – this topic could use more coverage. I’ll request more info from the customer on type of site I’d be linking to (relevant and appropriate), term (not lifetime) desired and payment preferences (my pref PayPal). A few text link ads might help pay for hosting. I see how some folks believe it to be a sell-out but it may make sense for those of us trying to keep the blog alive! Thanks for the info!
thanks for the info.. i have make a lot of success with sell text ads and banner ads.. all the info given by admin are true.. great post to spread
Nice tips to consider when selling links on my website for the future. I have sold a link for a three year duration and I am quite regretting it now. But mistakes are made to be learned from isn’t it. It is good that I’ve found your guide to selling links.
These are nice and wonderful tips but i need to ask one question that weather text link exchange or trade is ban by Google or not. Than how can we smartly exchange links between relevant websites.
I’m thinking of selling links on my site. There were times that clients wanted to buy permanent links. Good think I did not agree with it.
I have not started selling adlinks on my site yet but I agree with the following points. Just like I did for the comments I stated the rules of conduct and other policies, you should do he same for adlinks and other advertising mediums you allow on your site. The biggest fear I have is making my site look spammy even though making money is great, my readers happiness always comes first.
I also agree with making sure the content matches the focus of your site. Whatever market you’re trying to reach you should provide helpful links to or your visitors might think it’s spam or even be offended if it’s inappropriate.
Its hard enough when first starting a site to grow it don’t make it harder with many mistakes.
Great info
I sold text links on my site once and few days later it was penaized by Google. At the time it was getting 4000 visits per day but after the penalty it started getting 200-300 hits per day. So i dont use the text links anymore but I have few sites which are idle. Maybe I ll try it on those sites
Just like I did for the comments I stated the rules of conduct and other policies, you should do he same for adlinks and other advertising mediums you allow on your site. The biggest fear I have is making my site look spammy even though making money is great, my readers happiness always comes first.