Even when I first started this blog, I was seeing a lot of sites and blogs offering and giving away free advertisements in form of text links, 125X125 ad or whatever. Some people are even reluctant to give them away in contests or as an incentives like this blog for example (the incentivized q and a sessions). But the most common trend nowadays, is contests which claims to have $XXXX in advertising galores. Of course, its easy to say “I’m going to sponsor this spot worth $XX”. And saying that it worths that way doesn’t really mean it’s really the value of that.
Well don’t get me wrong, I am not against those stuffs and contests, sponsors that give away these things. In fact I do even sponsor something here as well in form of an adspot. But my point here is that, these free adspaces can really give you a nice estimate of how much you are really getting w/advertising. I mean, an adspot oftentimes is priced higher than the value it gives but one thing to keep in note when you advertise is not just the clickthroughs you are getting, remember that more than the clicks is what is called as “brand awareness”. Most of the time, people come to my site and tell me “I am seeing your site’s “my blog sucks” slogan on most forums and blogs so I just thought I would give you a visit” And actually thats it. Brand recognition is like you want to get all people reading that blog to know that you have a website. This way people will be more aware of your brand/product and believe me it helps in the long run.
So what about the free adspaces you keep on receiving day in and day out? My advice is always take a chance to use it. You don’t need to expect something “good” that quick with it, but then there will come a time wherein all the readers and commenters of that blog will also start commenting on yours and start following your blog. And of course, its always nice to get something for free, even if it seems to be of trivial value. 🙂