Alistair asks – ‘Having a gap blog implies that I won’t ever have a similar amount of visitors as probably the most larger generation/media blogs. This means that advertisers corresponding to blog ads will not allow me to use their ads as they see me as having lower visitor numbers. Traditionally manufacturers in my niche are wary of the cyber web even though they have websites – I have contacted a few and state my guest numbers etc but still they’re unwilling to even trial. I think it is as a result of my blog is “non-public” but in my niche I can escape with that as it is classed as a diary.
Any advice?’6. Sell the Niche Angle – actually that the majority of us won’t ever compete with the broad publications which are out there – so don’t compete with them by seeking to fool advertisers into considering that you simply’re bigger than you are – sell the undeniable fact that you’re different and that you can reach a narrow and focused group of people that makes the cash an advertiser spends much more positive. ‘Spend $1 on a big site and you might reach a lot of people who’re mildly drawn to your topic – sell $1 on our site and you’ll reach those who find themselves enthusiastic about your topic…. ’Thank you very much for answering my query it has certainly given me food for concept. One thing that has changed since I posted my query is that I no longer ask companies to truly promote on my blog – I now ask for products to review, similar to sponsorship which you have already mentioned. In my niche fly fishing, merchandise often look great on paper but when you in fact use them you find they do not actually work as expected, bags don’t sit conveniently and boots collapse after a few periods.
The manufacturers often send their items to the sought after paper magazines who review them but to be honest I always query their impartiality as they are counting on the manufacturer continuing to advertise with them. What I stated to a up to date brand was that I would post my preliminary impressions and then continue posting about the product as I used it. This I think could be a little a poisoned chalice as loads of my shop bought gear fell apart after what I would call “fair use” and I am now have pretty high scores for those items in search engines – although what the reader is shopping at is how briskly something fell apart in place of a “sparkling” review.
