Get Free Advertising with Bla.st
- Fri Jul 6, 2007
- By Susan
- Filed under: Traffic
- 2 Comments
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Bla.st is a fairly new directory that utilizes business card type advertising as directory listings. Advertising is free but there is an option to pay for a higher listing within the categories or tags assigned for your blog category. I’m guessing that because the website is still new, bidding for a more competitive listing could be as low as 2 cents per day. On the front page, I’ve seen the highest bid around 16 cents per day.
How Does The Program Work?
Just about anything can be promoted on blast except for referrals and affiliate links. Payment on bla.st is optional. You don’t have to pay anything to get listed but cards are ordered by cost per day and whoever pays the most will therefore have a top listing on the front and/or category page. Cards paying the same amount per day will be ordered by date, therefore newer cards will be listed last. So, the sooner you place your card on the site the better your position.
The card is very easy to add and you won’t have to worry about any click fraud or fees since costs per day are a fixed amount.
The Bonus
If you want better positioning of your ad without paying even 1 cent, you can do one of the following:
1) Write about bla.st on your blog and submit it to bla.st with the link. Upon approval they will give you an additional 2 cents per day to your card.
or
2) Link to bla.st and they’ll add 1 cent per day for a year to your card. Make sure to alert them of the link.
The cards are not restricted to only appear on their site but also through widgets on other sites. Placing a widget on your site includes you into their referral program which doesn’t pay much since it’s a 50/50 split of what an advertiser is willing to pay. So if it is 0 cents or even 1 cent, it’s not going to be very much at all. Maybe time will tell as the site grows. I’ve placed the widget in the right sidebar for you to take a look at.
Reviewing some of the prices paid, I think most people could get by with paying nothing and get listed in the top section of one of Bla.st’s most popular categories listed in the left sidebar. As the site grows and proves to be a good traffic generator, placement may become more competitive and costs per day may go higher.
All-in-all it can still be a good avenue to test, especially since the site is 10 months new. There are many great blog sites, such as TechCrunch, that have already signed up.
5:45 am on July 9th, 2007
This is great information Susan. Thanks for posting it. I refered to your article and linked to it from my blog about this service. I love your work. I can tell it’s going to be a regular rescource for me as I develope my project. Thanks again.
7:15 am on August 8th, 2007
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title e Advertising with Bla.st | Susan Suarez. Thanks for informative article