WP Text Ads Blog

10 July 2007 update

With the new release of WP Text Ads 1.1, the way to join the Marketplace has changed. Although it’ll still use del.icio.us, the steps are slightly different. Read the Marketplace FAQ for details.

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The biggest complaint I have received from WP Text Ads users in the last week is that advertisers cannot find their blogs. So how would they sell ads to them?

I have been working to address this issue for the last few days. The easiest response would be to create a traditional directory which lists down all the blogs. But on second thought, I decided not to. Here are a few reasons why:

1. How do advertisers search for such blogs? By category? Is it relevant to categorize blogs?
2. If keyword searches are used, how should this directory show which blogs appear on the first page?
3. Users will need to register a new account. That’s troublesome and a barrier to usage.
4. Should it be an open directory? Will search engines frown on such a directory because it’s used to link to sites selling paid links? If I make it a closed directory where advertisers need to register first, isn’t that a barrier to usage?
5. You can’t beat Google by becoming ‘Yet Another Search Engine’, so why should this directory be better than those that already exist?

Conclusion: The traditional directory is not necessarily the best way forward. What can be better then?

In one of those ‘Ah-ha!’ moments, I realized we can leverage on the power of Del.icio.us to create a marketplace for WP Text Ads users.

This is what you need to do.

Using this ‘for-wptextads’ tag and other keywords, advertisers will be able to find your blogs on del.icio.us. No login required.

So with just one simple step, we have created a very basic social-networked marketplace for WP Text Ads users.

To take it further, I’m currently working on something that uses the del.icio.us API and the ‘for-wptextads’ tag to add new features. If you have other ideas, please share with us in the comments section.

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About the author

I'm Alex Choo and I live in sunny Singapore. I'm also the developer of WP Text Ads, a WordPress plugin that lets bloggers sell ads directly to advertisers so that they pay 0% in commissions and earn 100% in profits.

Feel free to drop me a note anytime you wish. You should also subscribe to the low volume email announcement list for WP Text Ads below.