#35's Waste of Space: You're Supposed to Like What You Do

Cutter's Log - Stardate 7002.72.80
Current Song - Early Autumn (George Shearing)

Don't get me wrong: I like working at BP. It's the best non-journalism job I've ever had, but it seems like this particular college semester is not working out.

This has brought me to trying to figure out some way NISB can be a money-generator. This is the fourth year I've run the site, and I haven't made too much money off of it. Easily said: none. Kevin over at Streator Sports has began advertising on his front page for $75(?)/week. Then he has subsequent spaces on his page for smaller amounts. I think I can change the layout of my homepage to leave some space for ad space. Using his rates, a small ad, a tall ad and a banner ad would be equivalent to a $250.00 every-two-week paycheck. I don't think I should charge a higher rate because of the numbers of my current site traffic.

Using the current set-up of NISB:

1. I've got the top banner ad

2. One or more small ads or tall ads on the left side of the page, once the nav bar has converted to a drop-down menu

3. The Ticker can be scrapped, and a Story Archive description can replace the top half of it. The Story archive description and the nav bar/drop-down menu will be parallel in size to each others, thus doubling idea #2.

4. Submit your own story, the mailing list and the press releases descriptions can all be compacted to just three lines. These three entities can be placed just under the Message Boards link. This would compact the homepage itself.

Two recent stories on the current middle column, plus the space saved for small and tall ads would make the site (at least the top portion of it) a quadrangular shape.

Banner

Tall------Content------Tall

Content

Small-----Content-----Small

The above makes up my top space. The middle space will be quad-shaped with eight (8) story links. That makes the recent stories set at a popular set number, ten, with the content pushing toward the sides of the pages.

Small-----Content-----Small

____________________

ContentContentContentContent

ContentContentContentContent
ContentContentContentContent
ContentContentContentContent
ContentContentContentContent

With each block of:

ContentContent

Being one story header

More requests for advertising space may be made for the middle section by shrinking the content to look more square than rectangle, and placing tall ads on each side of the page.

That makes up my middle space. The bottom space, which begins with "Can't find the article you're looking for?" isn't really a good place for advertisements. So I think this is set.

On the homepage, we're looking at 9 to 11 ads.

Then there is the message boards:

1. I can put a global banner ad for all of the NISB message board pages.

2. I can put a single banner ad for the message board index.

*Note that I cannot alter the ProBoards banner advertisement (nore do they give me any money, that comes with the site package)

Now we're talking 11-13 ads on the page.

Then it get's better:

Another link with other ads. Kind of like, a "Check out our sponsors" link with each sponsor that has ad space, plus a little more about them. AND, a logo and a brief description about other sponsors that don't have actual ads on the pages. That rate will be the smallest.

As soon as I can do my part in churning out the content and site traffic numbers, I can go forward with advertising. I'm also putting out an advertising Q&A soon.

So here's what we got:

1. Homepage banner ad
2. Homepage tall ad
3. Homepage small ad
4. Page of your choice banner ad
5. Page of your choice tall ad
6. Page of your choice small ad
7. Game article banner ad
8. Game article tall ad
9. Game article small ad
10. Message board banner global header ad
11. Message board banner main header ad
12. Message board small global header ad
13. Message board small main header ad

14. The cheap ad

#35's Waste of Space

Monday, August 27, 2007

You're Supposed to Like What You Do

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