Monday, February 21, 2011

Ads on school websites: What to advertise

With budget stress for schools, many are looking for new sources of revenue. Website advertising is an option. There are lots of ways to advertise on school websites like ours if you choose to do so.

What to advertise: Think "useful"

Targeted advertising attempts to present only those ads to readers that are likely to be of interest to them. That's how the ads work Google. Two factors determine when and where Google ads will appear. First, advertisers bid on search terms. The bid is for how much the advertiser must pay if a user clicks on the ad link. He pays nothing if no one clicks. So, if an advertiser bids on the search term "football" and someone does a search for "football," his ad may appear along the border or above the search results. But where?

The second factor that determines where an ad will appear is the number of clicks it has attracted. Ads that get lots of clicks are considered to be the most useful to people searching for that search term, so Google places them closer to the top of the list. Those with fewer clicks are placed lower on the list or on later pages of search results. Google doesn't disclose exactly how the two factors, bid and click frequency, are combined to determine placement, but they use both.

The point is, like Google, it's best to think of advertising as a way to offer useful information to your website visitors. The alternative is to think you only serve the advertisers and any kind of disruptive or annoying junk they want to put on your page is fine as long as they pay the price. That attitude is a quick way to lose website visitors.

What might your school website visitors find useful?

• Educational material such as National Geographic, tutoring services, gymnastics schools, martial arts schools
• Colleges, summer schools, experience vacations
• Non-school organizations like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
• Counseling services
• Local businesses
• Vanity ads like the ones that many yearbooks include where parents congratulate their kid's accomplishments
• Personal ads

Posted at 8:47 AM (permalink) 3 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: ads, cost savings