Want to Make Money With Your Blog? Be Like the Big Guys, But Charge More
Posted on 10. Nov, 2009 by Grinder in publishing
What the ad rates of the most valuable blogs in the U.S. tell us about balancing advertising and content strategies.
The business and investing site 24/7 Wall St. today released its latest installment of the 25 most valuable blogs in the United States. Needless to say, the editors here at SpammyBlogger weren’t terribly surprised to learn that we had missed the cut (maybe if it was a top 26!), but we were surprised to learn that many of the highest valued blogs had surprisingly low advertising (CPM) rates.
When popular and highly valued sites like The Drudge Report, Talking Points Memo and Perez Hilton have CPM rates in the relatively low $5 to $6 dollar range, you might wonder how they are able to make any money at all. Well, the answer is twofold:
- Sites with low effective CPMs and high revenues usually get crazy traffic volume. Not only that, their visitors stick around, visiting as many as 7 pages per visit.
- Sites with low advertising rates but high revenues usually have other revenue streams. Those revenue streams (if ad-based) can sometimes really spam-up a site with all kinds of text link ads and referral banners and widgets. There is a fine line to walk between properly monetizing a site and
Unless you’re getting boatloads of traffic, however, low CPM rates are tough to build value upon. And while some sites have figured out seemingly workable models with this strategy, most of the highest-valued blogs on the list–Gawker Media, Techcrunch–have much higher CPM rates, upwards of $20 CPMs on a page.
The difference between the two categories can largely be explained by differences in quality of content and experience. Better writing, reporting and aesthetics allow publishers to command higher CPM rates.
But those things all take time and resources and some bloggers/publishers might want to rush into things and get as many ads as possible on their site. The problem with chosing that strategy is that once you go that route, it is hard to rebound and ever establish as a blog leader in a niche that commands higher CPMs.
Chauncy
11. Nov, 2009
What about sponsorships that don’t depend on the fluctuations of traffic volume? You definitely need killer content to get and keep sponsors’ interest though.