In case you missed it, Youth Ministry Exchange (ymexchange.com) was recently purchased by Youth Specialties. Here’s the press release. 

Of course, the Ad Network will just keep on rolling along. Look for us to add more bloggers soon as well as more advertisers. Please check out the advertisers page or learn more about applying to the network. 

We’re happy to report that April payments to bloggers have all hit PayPal accounts. Some of our bloggers made enough for a cup of Joe at Starbucks while a couple others are doing quite well. All this to say… 3 things that make our ad network different from others.

• We share a whopping 80% of ad revenue. (Industry standard is 50%)
• We have no minimum payment threshold. (Industry standard is $100)
• We screen out the crappy ads. (Industry standard is not screened)

The Youth Ministry Ad Network is an awesome way to monetize your blog. If you’ve got great traffic and are getting lots of readers from within youth ministry… we want to hear from you!

March 31st, 2008 concluded the pilot period for the Youth Ministry Ad Network. After a 3 month test period we are happy to report that the network will continue and is now fully funded by advertisers. (Pilot period guaranteed financially by Youth Ministry Exchange.)

As of today we have paid youth ministry bloggers $816.51! The highest earning blogger has made almost $250 in 3 months, simply by blogging.

Are you accepting new bloggers? The network is always willing to review new blogs.  At this time we may be interested in adding 1-2 additional blogs. If you are influential within a large youth ministry organization or have an established traffic base and blog about youth ministry, we’d love to hear from you.

Two basic requirements:

1. Page Rank of 3 or higher check now
2. 1,000 or more visitors to your blog per month

How do I take my small blog to a bigger audience? One simple, guaranteed way to do this is to link OUT to other blogs and websites. Why? Beyond it being polite, it’s a great way to get larger blog authors to look at your site… and maybe they will mention your post or at least subscribe to your reader. You’d be surprised how often this can lead to developing a “blog relationship.” The reality is that every medium to large-sized blog author has many technorati and google-based vanity searches for themselves and their blogs. So any time you link to them they will get notified within an hour of the content mentioning you.

My rule of thumb: Link out to 2-3 sites per blog post. If you do that consistently you will see an increase in traffic, guaranteed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is some atypical blog advice. Spend a lot of time getting to know your audience. Find out the types of posts that they like, find out what they are looking for, and then… do something crazy.

Give it to them PLUS some stuff they aren’t looking for.

Why? Well, chances are if they like most of your content they will keep coming back. But if you introduce a new genre to the mix you may just add a whole new group of people you don’t know yet.

Make sense? 

The first month of the ad network is now behind us and we are all very pleased with the results. As with any new venture, we’ve learned some things. Some were obvious and some were not so obvious.

The bloggers got paid. (At least those who told us how to pay them) A couple of critics of our ad network had the nerve to ask us if we were actually going to pay bloggers to place ads. Well, ask our bloggers. Our fee structure is fair and bloggers were paid based on impressions and not based on clicks like Google. As more advertisers get on board with the network, bloggers will make more money and we can allow more bloggers into the network.

Solid stats worth the money. Going into this, our theory was that if you placed high quality ads on high quality blogs, the click rate would take care of itself and advertisers would love that. This was dead on… I love saying we were right. We placed 108,000 ads in January and the CTR was great!

Online advertising is about influence, not popularity. In theory I knew this to be true but now we’ve seen it in practice. Blog readers are more likely to click an ad and take action if they know and trust the blogger.

Being “ad light” helps earn the highest returns. Have you gotten enough newsletters or  seen enough blogs loaded with advertising? Our theory has always been… light on ads = heavy on returns. If you look at our bloggers you’ll see that none of them heavily advertises. A couple of ad blocks is plenty.

A well executed blog will draw traffic. One of our bloggers blew us away with her ability to draw traffic. Her secret? Stick to the basics. Write witty content, write a great title, and tag the snot out of it. Then let the search engines do the rest.

We are looking forward to a bright future with the blog ad network. If you are interested in either joining our network or advertising on the network, let us know!

Sometimes small things can make a big difference in getting your blog post read. So let’s cover the basics first. Follow these 3 tips and you are guaranteed to draw more traffic to your blog.

1. Write a good title. When you title a post, imagine you are searching Google. Does your title says enough to get someone to click on it. So, let’s say you are posting about a problem you’ve encountered at the office and how you dealt with it. A title like “Ugh… Frustration” may be how you feel, but it isn’t compelling enough to want to read. Instead, a title like “Dealing with Frustrations at Work and My Response Strategy” will compel the reader to visit and read.
2. Define your audiences. It used to be thought that you had to narrowly define your blog down to a single audience. That’s too narrow! Instead, focus each post on a distinct audience. Maybe your blog has 3 main audiences… the parents of youth group students, other youth pastors, and people in your extended family. Then just make sure that you are writing something on a regular basis that each of those distinct audiences will want to read.
3. Link out. Allow and encourage your readers to continue to explore. On my own blog I try to link to every organization, individual, and Bible passage I talk about. Besides giving your reader more information, linking out increases the strength and relevance of your post on the search engines.

What are the basics you use? What advice would you give to bloggers to increase their sites traffic?

It’s Tuesday morning, January 1st 2008. As a new year dawns I shake of the dust from staying up too late, try to remember to write “2008″ on checks, and read the 1,000 blogs about it being New Year’s Day.

And January 1st, 2008 also marks the official launch of the Youth Ministry Ad Network. Starting today you will begin seeing our network ads on some of the most influential blogs in youth ministry.

The Youth Ministry Ad Network exists to connect highly influential bloggers to high quality products for the youth ministry world.

Opening day notes:

• The network is in a pilot phase for 3 months. This means that we’re testing our system, establishing rules that are fair to our bloggers, and seeking to build a portfolio of high quality advertisers. During the pilot period, expect to see some changes as we get smarter.
• The network is now, and will always be, as transparent as we can about how it works. If you read through the Apply to the Network page you’ll learn all about our revenue sharing and blogger expectations. Likewise, our group of bloggers is transparent in sharing with us.
• While our pilot group of bloggers is set, (look to the right for our list of bloggers grow as they get set-up) we are always accepting applications to join the network. Head on over to the Apply page and fill out the contact form.
• Is there a need for this? Yes. While Google Adwords and other PPC advertising options are great, it simply cannot deliver advertising exact enough to be effective for youth ministry. From both the advertisers, Adwords lacks the ability to target ads to the right places to maximize impact. Likewise, from a bloggers perspective Adwords is difficult to solidify a good stream of ads to the blog. This leads to many things being displayed that are irrelevant for the bloggers (doesn’t pay) and the advertiser (people don’t click). The ad network is not inventing a new market of online advertising for youth ministry, it is merely acting as a conduit to connect high quality products to highly influential bloggers.
• The network is managed by Youth Ministry Exchange. We are an established youth ministry company launched in December 2005. Read more about us. YMX is providing the engine which places ads, accounting, start-up funding, and management support to establish the first ad network exclusively for youth ministry on the internet.

If you are in youth ministry and you have been blogging for a while you likely have two things in common.

• You are influential to an audience
• You could use some extra money

The Youth Ministry Ad Network is designed to help combine those two things. We pay you to display our network ads on your blog and we help companies get their products in front of the audience you influence.

If you are a blogger and are interested in joining our network, we are currently accepting applications.

If you are an advertiser and are interested in advertising, we are currently accepting new advertisers.

As the creators of Youth Ministry Exchange, we have learned the power of connecting with the youth ministry audience. Youth ministry leaders are dynamic and highly influential people who help their churches, students, and peers pick the best products on the market. We are a proven and trusted company that continues to innovate and encourage youth workers as they serve, support, and encourage today’s amazing adolescents.