I’ve been looking over some of my bigger sites the past few days and have been brainstorming ways I could/should monetize better. One of the ways was to install an ad platform that allowed for better testing of affiliate offers, always rotating out poor performers and testing new offers that might work better. I also have some new “features” to incorporate in my sites that should provide completely new streams of income. But what about simply increasing my ad inventory by placing more ads on the site?

It’s certainly possible, but there is a thin line between monetizing and being spammy. For my big sites – whitehat sites with a following – the last thing I want to do is alienate my readers/visitors by whoring out my entire site with ads. But what if you could incorporate more ad placements WITHOUT alienating visitors with intrusive banners all over the place? That’s exactly what I set out to do.

My core audience is subscribed to my RSS feed, Twitter feed and check in on my sites frequently. They might arrive through Google Reader, a link from another site or direct type-ins but I think its safe to say that they aren’t frequently checking out the archives and reading all the old posts… posts and articles they’ve probably already read. So why not create a new ad placement that only shows on posts older than XX days?

There are a few Wordpress Plugins that do this, but unfortunately, I had a problem with nearly all of them. I found some code snippets around and tried some PHP hackery but my skills are nunca. So I do what I always do when I can’t solve a problem… ask someone smarter for help. I hit up my friend LazyD on WickedFire who took the concept/code I was working with and twisted it into a solution in less than 5 minutes.

Here is the code:

<div style=”float:left”>
<?php

//$post = new stdClass;

//$post->post_date = date(’Y-m-d’, strtotime(’-31 days’));

$dayDiff = round((strtotime(’now’) – strtotime($post->post_date)) / (60 * 60 * 24));

if($dayDiff > 30):
?>

<!– BEGIN ADVERTISEMENT CODE –>
PUT YOUR AD CODE HERE
<!– END ADVERTISEMENT CODE –>

<? endif; ?>
</div>

I placed a 300×250 rectangle at the top of all posts 30 days or older and floated it left so that it was folded into the flow of the content. Ultimately I decide it was a bit too big and will go with either a 468×60 without the float property and/or a 300×250 elsewhere, further down the page and perhaps in the “Related Articles” section. But by doing this I am able to create an entirely new ad placement that does very little in terms of pissing off my loyal readership.

Furthermore, I’m now working with a CPM agency that sells ad placement for me and takes a commission. While the commission is rather large, I still  generate a MUCH larger CPM than I would with adsesnse and/or other offers/ads. With a LOT of posts over the past year and with excellent SERPs for a lot of longtail keywords, I’ve just created another stream of income without hurting the visitor experience… at least to the visitors that mean most.

In the future, I’ll likely experiment with other ways to only show ads under certain circumstances. In fact, this should represent a completely new kind of ad called either Circumstantial Ads or Contingent Ads that are only triggered if specific guidelines are met. That’s what I’ll refer to them as from now on: Contingency Ads and Circumstantial Ads. You could show ads depending on referring site such as WickedFire, Google Search, Yahoo Search, etc… It could be whether or not they are a member who is currently signed in… you could be really creative with the various contingencies.

Awwww sooky sooky… I just coined a term!

For now, I’m happy to have added another ad placement to my highly trafficked sites that will bring in some more money. I have a LOT of entirely new features to create that will bring in additional income, but while I’m doing that, I’ll be earning more money via these new ad placements that took 5 minutes to integrate and still protect my everyday readers. A month or so down the road I’ll likely revisit this concept by creating a few more ads based on contingencies and circumstances.

One ad type that I have REFUSED to implement even though they’ve contacted me several times is the contextual based ads placed by companies like Kontera. I hate them. I think they are obnoxious and idiotic and sites that have them really irk me. However, if my site has been around for 2 years and the old articles are still generating decent search engine traffic I don’t think I’d mind placing Kontera on ads that are 1+ years old.

We’re always looking for new ways to generate revenue. Hopefully this has given you a new idea to pursue and squeeze some more bucks out of the equity you’ve built.