Going rate for banner ad on website?

dinneenp

Hi,
I have a photography website- http://www.photoblog.ie

I get about 2,000 visitors per month, 10,000 page views.
I got an e-mail from a marketing company offering €100 if I place a smallish banner ad (for M&S) on any page on my site.
They didn't ask for site stats up front so I'm guessing they just want it as another external link to their site which will help M&S site in SEO rankings (i think).
I said €100 is way too low and they came back and offered €120 (laughable low rise in offer).
What would be a reasonable price that should be paid based on the stats?
Would having a banner ad on my site effect my SEO in any way?
Thanks in advance,
Pa.

The Apprentice

To be fair i wouldnt be asking for much more than that, it isnt a bad offer.

2000 uniques a month isnt a whole pile to be fair and is the banner permanent .. yearly ???

MarkScully

I would tend to agree with 'The Apprentice'

Your website isn't gaining large enough traffic to justify anymore than what they're offering. You should be quite happy with the payment if the banner is small and non-intrusive on your site for a short period of time.

I'm not sure what you were expecting for a small site?

LifeBeginsAt40

I see just over 250K unique visitors per month to one of my website's home page.

I charge £30 / €37 per month for a home page banner. On a 3 months in advance basis.
Am now in my second year of this advertising contract with the client.

Just my 2 cents worth.

dinneenp

Thanks. I had no idea what the going rate was, I've now accepted it.
I got an offer before of €110 for a simple reference and link withing a blog post so I thought a banner in place for a year would get more. But I'm happy with €120. here's the page.

I could have put in a smaller banner but I think this one fits better, the smaller one just looked 'thrown in'.

smash

LifeBeginsAt40 wrote: »

I see just over 250K unique visitors per month to one of my website's home page.

I charge £30 / €37 per month for a home page banner. On a 3 months in advance basis.
Am now in my second year of this advertising contract with the client.

Just my 2 cents worth.

That is very low. don't sell yourself short.

dinneenp

smash wrote: »

That is very low. don't sell yourself short.

That really suprised me too. And it's a front page ad!

IRE60

Indo charge €15 per 1000 uniques - so work it out yourself.

smash

dinneenp wrote: »

That really suprised me too. And it's a front page ad!

Probably make more using google adwords to be honest.

Mrs OBumble

Interesting.

I'm the website manager for a community music group. The site gets maybe 20 (yes, that's two-zero) visitors per week - not sure how many pages they view, but with that few visitors I don't think it matters.

While we don't get many hits, we do rank very well (first page, sometimes first position) in our niche with the obvious keywords. And we have a good set of natural cross-links with other organisations in our niche and area.

Anyways, I also got an email from a marketing company, offering E50 to run a for a banner ad for M&S for a year.

Somehow, I smell a rat .. but I just can't put my finger on it.

Pa - how did they pay you? Is there a contract? Have you seen any problems?

Anyone else - is there anything obvious I've missed?


(fyi, yes I do know how to build a site that gets decent traffic - one of my others is getting 1400 visits per day. But the community group one is not aiming to draw search traffic, just to back up messages that we send to target-audience people via other media, and to be a repository of our historical information.)

dinneenp

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Interesting.Anyways, I also got an email from a marketing company, offering E50 to run a for a banner ad for M&S for a year.

Somehow, I smell a rat .. but I just can't put my finger on it.

Pa - how did they pay you? Is there a contract? Have you seen any problems?

Anyone else - is there anything obvious I've missed?

I'm guessing that they just want to build some external links to M&S site. My site comes high for 'photoblog' if search results are set to Ireland, same with yours so there's probably some algorithm that says the higher sites are (with the external link to M&S) the better for M&S.
They offered to pay via Paypal, other companies have done this too and also withougt a contract.
I'll update if/when I get paid or if anything else happens in the meantime.

Now, I'm off to my local lovely Marks & Spensers store to buy some mouth watering delicious food.

dinneenp

Update: I got paid!
I'd say go for it but reject their first offer.

MarkScully

I've got to ask..

How were you paid? Bank transfer or Paypal?

This just seems a tad suspicious for a company like M&S to do. I'm not saying your website isn't good but, for M&S to want a link on there just doesn't sit right with me.

They don't need to conduct link building outreach like this. And they certainly don't need to contact small sites.

Could it be a competitor trying to do some damage? It just seems odd to me.

dinneenp

Paid by Paypal.
I was wondering why M&S need that link building too.
Maybe they have X budget for online marketing and it's approaching End of Year so use it up? (probably not but I'm just guessing).
The marketing company is in the USA as well, which seems odd.
Anyway I got paid and withdrew the money so I'm happy.

MarkScully

It might be worth asking the marketing company a few questions though.

If M&S isn't behind this and you have one of their banners on your site, there may be some negative implications.

IRE60

dinneenp wrote: »

Paid by Paypal.
I was wondering why M&S need that link building too.
Maybe they have X budget for online marketing and it's approaching End of Year so use it up? (probably not but I'm just guessing).
The marketing company is in the USA as well, which seems odd.
Anyway I got paid and withdrew the money so I'm happy.

Great to hear that someone is making money but i just find it all a
little too suspicious to be honest.

M&s .ie have 18,462 external backlinks already! Why would the pay a tonne to have one on a low traffic and unrelated site to theirs*

*No offence is at all inferred there, just web stats.

The Apprentice

Guys your not thinking out side the bigger picture here..

I worked in a Digital Agency on Outreach for a Major insurer and other similar websites brands etc.. this is perfectly within the norm (although frowned upon by google) to actually pay for links.

The idea that they have 18462 links is perfectly accectable, well because they get to spend 50k per year with an agency.. the company was actually paid 300 euro per link on a DA 35 of higher website (Even if it did have 20 visitors) a week.

So the idea is to A.. Diversify your links broading speaking yes preferablly in Marks and Spencers Similar Niches (shopping)
B. Get it as cheaply as possibly .. so 300 - 50 = 250 profit for the company .. 30 links in 2 days are easily achievable..

The Reason i suspect his website got it,
A. Running out of websites, Ireland geographically has got **** all websites and perhaps in that niche they may be running out..
B. Domain Authority
C. Link Diversity - Brand Recognition and also social signals helping the overall Seo campaign..

Ideally its good as part of an overall strategy..
Also, the above comments stating that it must be a scam ..

Someone wants you to put a banner up and its a scam ?? God lads u need a hug sometimes :P Just take the money, do a dance and try and multiply it by 10 ..
Its a simple banner, if the money gets returned through paypal just simply take down the banner, nothing really lost nor gained to be fair.

You should ask them what company or website they hail from (check banner) :P if its legit you grand, your just panicking over nowt


Adieu friends, i hope the comments help somewhat

IRE60

Outside the banner question – let’s look at the bigger picture: An ‘SEO’/Digital/Marketing agency is trying to get paid links for a retail organisation? If that’s true then the retail organisation at some point will be bang to rights – depending on the caveats they have placed on the banner ads placement.

So, I appreciate the diversity, the domain aut, the ect etc – but, without knowing a little more, which the original poster could enlighten us with – I think we’d have to hold fire until we know the likes of the following:

What’s the “alt” of the ad?

Where is the link to (ie the final URL)

Is there any specification on “no follow”

Only after that can we assess the ‘link’ as, let be honest, it’s not a traffic driver.

If those issues can be clarified then perhaps we can move this on.

dinneenp

IRE60 wrote: »

Outside the banner question – let’s look at the bigger picture: An ‘SEO’/Digital/Marketing agency is trying to get paid links for a retail organisation? If that’s true then the retail organisation at some point will be bang to rights – depending on the caveats they have placed on the banner ads placement.

So, I appreciate the diversity, the domain aut, the ect etc – but, without knowing a little more, which the original poster could enlighten us with – I think we’d have to hold fire until we know the likes of the following:

What’s the “alt” of the ad?

Where is the link to (ie the final URL)

Is there any specification on “no follow”

Only after that can we assess the ‘link’ as, let be honest, it’s not a traffic driver.

If those issues can be clarified then perhaps we can move this on.

Ok.this is from the marketing companies e-mail

Thanks so much for your reply. Our client is Marks and Spencer! We are interested in placing a banner ad on this page of your site:
http://photoblog.ie (If you prefer an internal page, we could probably do that also)

The banner should direct to this exact URL: http://www.marksandspencer.ie/

I have attached a few banner options for your review.

I'll let you decide how to best structure the ad so it's both useful and respectful to your site's visitors. We just ask that the link is not located in the footer or under a 'sponsored' type section


They didn't specify that anything specific should be in the alt tag.
I set up the link to open in a new browser.

IRE60

Ok, if they haven't specified a 'nofollow' then they are canvassing paid links for the company - which given the enormity of the organisation its tragic they are trying to do that.

It's very little to do with you - it wont impact on your site, only on your bank balance! As you control the URL link- they are not trying to cloud you.

It was the larger picture I was looking at - the "link building" strategy - or lack thereof.

IRE60

Nice pic of Dunguaire Castle btw!

The Apprentice

Well given what i have heard today, the company needs to focus more on its Business Strategy than its Online marketing strategy but thats a story for another day..

Its a home page link so the Alt tag doesnt really need come into play (but again does help) variety is key

It doesnt seem to be a traffic driver i would suspect its the diversity or DA

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.photoblog.ie (Just checked it, just happened to be 35)

The overall strat we will prob never know..

LifeBeginsAt40

smash wrote: »

Probably make more using google adwords to be honest.

I do make more from Adsense, 4 figures most months, so to be honest the banner is extra as already maxed out on Adsense space.

TsuDhoNimh

IRE60 wrote: »

... if they haven't specified a 'nofollow' then they are canvassing paid links for the company - which given the enormity of the organisation its tragic they are trying to do that.

Looks like they've engaged a new agency to work on their behalf (specifically in relation to the Irish market), as it's a site that hadn't previously gained much attention in this area. In the last few weeks, however, they have come up on the radar frequently for this (I've got a few mails myself in relation to it).

IRE60 wrote: »

it wont impact on your site, only on your bank balance!

I'd disagree, strongly.

Given your post here mentioning your site, mentioning the payment made for the link and showing your placement of the link, it could have a very direct impact on your site. If I were a competitor of yours in either that niche or for any of the keywords you're currently ranking for I could very easily report you for selling links.

As they didn't specify anything relating to follow or nofollow, I'd change that link to a nofollow straight away and ensure it appears to Google that you're not trying to manipulate search engine rankings with paid links. Any advertisement of that nature should be a nofollow'd link in order to adhere to the search engine guidelines.

While it would have been extremely difficult for them to prove/identify a paid link of this nature in general, now that it's openly disclosed as such it's simply a matter of someone bringing it to Google's attention.

blue4ever

TsuDhoNimh: We'd agree to disagree on the impact of the implications of the photo site hosting a paid link to a retailer. Personally I think the **** storm will be to the provider of the $'s. But that has yet to be seen.

Leaving that aside there is a bigger issue here. The 'advice' in many quarters here and on other forums on this area is appalling. I'm a huge contributor to the Google webmaster forum and am tired of contributing to 'why has my ranking crashed' Ans: coz you gamed the system and got fcuked and that's why they have the disavow tool - because of tools like you.
In theory that the apt answer but its a 'polite' forum and "one has to Queensbury"

Anyway, the advice in many areas could be a little more work, as opposed to cut and run.

I think the retailer here is fcuked with a capital F after this (or will be soon). I think that other organisations, also alluded to here, will have their day in the never to be seen rankings soon.

Stop trying to game the system, work instead.

The Apprentice

No i have to disagree with you There TsudoNimh ..

I think it has to be emphasized again that it is indeed a banner .. and not a Link

Although i might need to get clarification as to what is or is not allowed on sites.. Banner is .. and obviously links are not.

I think if this flashed in front of googles eyes at the moment both parties would be safe, ONLY because its a banner and not a straight link..

TsuDhoNimh

blue4ever wrote: »

TsuDhoNimh: We'd agree to disagree on the impact of the implications of the photo site hosting a paid link to a retailer. Personally I think the **** storm will be to the provider of the $'s. But that has yet to be seen.

I'm not sure what you think the disagreement is?

Yes, the site purchasing the links will get hit if/when it's identified (and given the attention they're getting at the moment in public for these requests I'd tend to assume it's something that is being looked at). There's no disagreement there, I just don't really care what happens to M&S in this case as they're not (to my knowledge) participating (in the form of their external providers) in the thread.

Having said that, the site selling them will/would get hit too (and as the OP is the one selling the link that's the only side of this I was discussing). There's no debate on that one, Google have been punishing sites selling links far longer than they've been (actively) punishing sites purchasing them.

There was some recent comments on link selling by both Matt Cutts and John Mueller of Google (which happened to be made on the same day independent of each other - which is always an interesting situation). They clearly comment on the PR hit that a site would suffer as a direct result of link selling (there's an in-joke about link selling between John and Barry Schwartz, the owner of the site I linked to, as Barry has had a very public penalty applied to his site for a very long time now for just this action - a penalty he refuses to remove for personal reasons as he had paid links on his site long before it was in breach of the webmaster guidelines).

TsuDhoNimh

The Apprentice wrote: »

Although i might need to get clarification as to what is or is not allowed on sites.. Banner is .. and obviously links are not.

I think if this flashed in front of googles eyes at the moment both parties would be safe, ONLY because its a banner and not a straight link..

I'd suggest doing the legwork to get that clarification TA, if they're not nofollowed it's still a breach.

The banner links in question are no different to an unanchored text link from Google's viewpoint as they haven't been nofollowed and aren't marked as advertising.

The Apprentice

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

I'd suggest doing the legwork to get that clarification TA, if they're not nofollowed it's still a breach.

The banner links in question are no different to an unanchored text link from Google's viewpoint as they haven't been nofollowed and aren't marked as advertising.

That i didnt know .. thanks dude

When you rephrase it like that i suppose your points are crystal clear

TsuDhoNimh

The Apprentice wrote: »

When you rephrase it like that i suppose your points are crystal clear

The rule has always been whether or not the paid link is passing page rank, I've never been aware of any exception being made for the form of that link (be it editorial, navigational, banner, text or hotlinking to images) and am certain that there isn't one in place at the moment.

It's an easy one for a site owner to make a mistake on, as banner advertisements are so common it's natural to assume it's perfectly fine to implement without the nofollow tag, but it is a breach. If the OPs site were hit with a PR penalty as a result it would be as simple as nofollowing the link and submitting the details to Google in a reconsideration request to have the penalty removed... but still one that's simply better to avoid at all times.

On the flip side, M&S would simply claim that they were trying to purchase banner advertising and never requested that the link was to pass PR, would disavow the link(s) in question and blame their SEO provider for not being more detailed in the requests (and the site owners for being the ones technically in breach of the rules) and would also clear up the issues from their side very quickly. I'd imagine it's a calculated risk from the M&S side (well, indirectly through their provider) where they felt the benefits made the risks of potentially having to jump through that hoop if it arose were worth while.

The Apprentice

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

The rule has always been whether or not the paid link is passing page rank,

Ye i just had a quick search on the webmaster forums that's bang on the money.. still its interesting reading either way..

Here,s more recently in case you or anyone reading didn't see this -- fantastic again
Im wishing there were more stories, a few of which i have tried myself to such sucess
http://pointblankseo.com/creative-link-building

fc2060

dinneenp wrote: »

Hi,
I have a photography website- http://www.photoblog.ie

Would having a banner ad on my site effect my SEO in any way?
Thanks in advance,
Pa.

It is my understanding that if you have a banner ad or are selling a link from your site that this will effect your SEO or ranking with Google. That is unless you have a "no-follow tag on each link. This is a means of telling Google that the link is not there for SEO purposes.

Generally the reason why somebody wants to pay you for a link from your site to their site is to gain "link juice", or to gain Google ranking

If someone wants to pay me for a link on my site I tell them I'm happy to do this as long as there is a "no-follow" tag. generally I do not hear anything back from them.

At the end of the day it depends how important Google ranking is and there are some sites who get away with selling links but most don't.


Fred

dinneenp

fc2060 wrote: »

It is my understanding that if you have a banner ad or are selling a link from your site that this will effect your SEO or ranking with Google. That is unless you have a "no-follow tag on each link. This is a means of telling Google that the link is not there for SEO purposes.

Generally the reason why somebody wants to pay you for a link from your site to their site is to gain "link juice", or to gain Google ranking

If someone wants to pay me for a link on my site I tell them I'm happy to do this as long as there is a "no-follow" tag. generally I do not hear anything back from them.

At the end of the day it depends how important Google ranking is and there are some sites who get away with selling links but most don't.


Fred

Thanks for this info.
It is as simple as the tag beig "no-follow" ?

fc2060

My understanding is that a no follow tag, is amongst other things an indication to Google that you are not trying to get ranking benefit from the link. the experts refer to it as "link juice"

Certainly selling banner ads on your site with the normal links to the advertising site is a breach of the Google quality guidelines

My own site has just recovered from a manual penalty by Google due to hidden text on the page which I was not aware of. this has been disastrous for my site.

blue4ever

fc2060 - i'm not trying to wind you up here - but how did you not know about the hidden text? Genuinely curious, a hack? developers being "cleaver"?

C

fc2060

I had no idea there was hidden text on my site. At one point I asked the developer to display certain content beside the price. A week or two later I asked him to remove it but instead of removing it he hid it. He did this in all honesty and without the knowledge that this was in breach of the Google quality guidelines. This content was quite keyword rich and so would really have annoyed Google.

It has been an expensive lesson. Over the last six months I have asked and paid for five different companies (Ireland, the UK, the USA and India) to tell me what the problem was and none of them spotted it. The message from Google itself was very bland and unhelpful. It merely said your site is in breach of the Google quality guidelines. We resubmitted for reconsideration having made various changes five times and each time we got back the same crappy message.

blue4ever

Its strange - most times i have a look at a site that have been warned/peanilised: Check links, copyscape to see if its knocking off copy and then on a few pages just hit
"ctrl a" surprising how much what reveals at times

Least its being sorted.

Thanks for the info

C