It’s no secret that I monetize all of my sites .. although, it might be a secret that I’ve created a new page trying to sort out these options in one location .. over here:

HART-Network.com/advertise/

* I received an email from Text-Link-Ads.com today

To: hart@
From: Text Link Ads Publisher Support

TLA WP Publishers, we are very excited tonight to announce the arrival of Post Level Text Link Ads! After you login and install our newest WP plugin you will be able to sell additional Text Link Ads on the bottom of your most popular individual posts!

Quick Post Level FAQ’s:

– You will still have editorial control for each link purchased if you have opted for editorial control for your regular Text Link Ads.

– Pricing is set automatically and is lower on a per link basis then typical homepage placed Text Link Ads.

– No extra coding work for you, we sync all of your posts automatically with our new WP plugin.

– If you regular Text Link Ads are sold out you will now have new inventory to sell.

Please upgrade your WP plugin now to get your site involved in this exciting new product that advertisers will love!

——————–
Patrick Gavin
President

This sounds like a good idea – for sites like a PetLvr or 1800HART where, I’ve been lucky to sell a majority of spots for sponsorship advertising. It might give opportunities for additional advertising on the sites that I seem to be getting a lot of traffic .. like posts on the PetLvr Top Post page ..

So .. what is the problem?

Well, my other sites aren’t doing that well .. and I haven’t really taken the time to actually CREATE a top posts page, so advertisers couldn’t possibly know what posts are really popular! Ah – if only there were so many hours in the day!

But – then I realized – I don’t even HAVE “TLA” plugins installed on my sites .. except for a few that been accepted for FEEDVERTISING – which, I have yet to entice anybody to want to advertise in my feeds as at this point in time. The rest have that initial code from the early days that take up half the sidebar.php template file. Yes – it’s worth it to upgrade, …

So – I logged into TLA and started to download these Plugins!

If you are unfamiliar with TLA plugins, what you have to do is create a unique plugin unique to every unique blog that you have. You can tailor the code to fit your site with respect to the colors, the size of font or even tell the code to match the font of your own blog’s css stylesheet.

The problem with this is that I’ve got over 40 blogs and currently, I’m approved for 19 sites with text-link-ads advertising. This means that I have to create and download 19 different and unique plugins and install them – carefully – into the right blogs and make sure that the code of the plugin is really the code for the plugin of text link ads that peoplea are advertising that will eventually end up on my sites!

Throughout the process, except for the front page where you “Install Ad Code” .. there is no reminder what site you are updating your plugin for. It can get quite confusing.

Fortunately, I am a “systems” guy and have created a simple system for myself to keep track .. I have documented the .php filenames in my AZZCardfile Notepad for each accepted site and decided to create and download all of the necessary plugin files into one central location. Then, once I upload via FTP to each of the appropriate plugin folders online .. I will double check to make sure that the plugin is activated and the code properly placed in the sidebars of my blogs.

At the moment – I have downloaded all 19 unique plugin versions and modified only 4 of them – and this took me 1-1/4 hours to do that. I’m beat! I’m busy! So, I’ve just decided to do this at my own leisure and then BOLD the filename to remind me that I’ve done this.

All in all .. I think Text-Link-Ads are a great tool for getting your site out there .. and nice for sites like us little guys who do not have millions of impressions per month. In fact, I have recently started to placing one TLA ad back in January for my PetLvr site. On April 2 I increased my inventory and started to spend a little more from the proceeds of sites sponsoring on my own sites … and I’m seeing an improvement in traffic. If it wasn’t for this past EASTER SUNDAY .. this was the first time *ever* that this network as whole maintained 6 out of 7 days over 1000 page views per day. I know, that’s not much to many of you .. and for the rest – it’s not that much for one site, because it’s not for one site – it’s for ALL sites that have the network code in the sidebar (click the green Sitemap green button under the code). And this is my slowest season where my time is concentrated offline!

Here’s the image – remember – this is just a few extra ads started April 2, 2007 .. and I haven’t been blogging that much!

PS: A Final Note About Advertising On My Sites

* This is about advertising on my sites via Text-Link-Ads.com, Linkworth.com, or deals made personally with me ..

For 2007, I will be posting monthly “THANK-YOU” posts to all the advertisers from the previous month listed as at month end. I’m giving a permanent link in the particular blog that everybody advertises on, that is remaining on my site on the last day of each month. I know it’s hard out there trying to figure out where to spend your advertising dollars .. and well .. that’s my THANKS for considering the HART-Empire Network.

However, I should say that because of the way I am aggregating the feeds of each channel – this is in fact – everybody advertising on one of my blogs each month will get THREE (3) permanent links on my sites .. not just one permanent link:

1) On the blog advertised, naturally!
2) On HART-Network.com aggregation of the whole network
3) On the channel aggregation e.g. HART-EMPIRE.com sponsors also on hart-network.com/small-business/ that aggregates only the specific channel that the blog belongs to, according to the network code in each sidebar

For what it’s worth. I hope it’s an added incentive, but I’m happy to do that anyway.