Nigerian Blogs and the importance of third party traffic report

As at 2014, there are many Nigerian blogs that are active and most of them do have a major goal of running a sustainable business with their blogging activities. There are probably only few that just blog for fun as its no longer news that blogging can now become a profitable business to run.

One of the ways through which Nigerian bloggers make money is by getting direct adverts from companies and small businesses. There are many of such businesses in Nigeria who might be willing to throw some money at bloggers of good repute but at most times, they find it hard deciding on which bloggers actually get a piece of the cake. One of the factors that normally allows those potential online advertisers come to a decision is the report of third parties.

Third party reports concerning the viability of advertising on a Nigerian blog would normally influence the decision of advertisers to pay for an advert space on that Nigerian blog. If the reports are good, then it would be beneficial to the blog else it won't

At times, Word of mouth is not enough to lure advertisers to your blog, they would also need to verify such information before trying to put in a significant amount of their marketing funds into that blog. Would advertisers be really willing to advertise on your blog if they seek the opinion of third party experts?

I've been priviledged to visit a lot of Nigerian blogs and have to say that some of them don't really know what it takes to convince potential advertisers to become loyal clients. It's one thing for an advertiser to just pay your money for an advert space on your blog for friendship or testing sake and another thing for him to pay you money because you deliver results. How can he be sure that you will deliver results in the first place? Well, he has to do an independent investigation of the kind of traffic your blog can drive in the first place.

Forget Alexa ranking and the rest although they might play some small role but you need to first of all set up a traffic reporting system that monitors your web site's traffic and then report it through third party website traffic monitors. One way you can do this is by setting up Google analytics for your blog and then reporting them though third party traffic reporting sites like SeetheStats.com. The site allows you to share your Google analytics traffic report with the public and this includes advertisers. Telling your advertisers how much traffic you actually receive might not be enough, you should also allow them to see the reports of independent parties as that would add more objectivity to your report.

Another way Nigerian blogs can draw direct advertisers is by making use of a subscriber count display. Services like Google Feedburner offer this and it basically shows how many people have subscribed to an email update service from your blog such that they get an email anytime you make a new post on the blog. People including potential advertisers also trust this and tend to put money based on how much subscribers a blog has. The more subscribers your blog has, the more your advert rates would be and the more willing advertisers would be willing to pay for space.

Having a social media platform linked to your blog can also help and sites like Facebook and Twitter come in hand. A blog with lots of Facebook likes and Twitter followers is more likely to get more direct advertisers than one with less. A potential advertiser is more likely to trust a Facebook or Twitter report about your blog and so would be willing to put more of their money on blogs they trust most. So, if you don't have these independent platforms already linked to your blog, it won't hurt trying.

It is one thing to tell the public how much traffic you have and another to let the public do the talking for you. Just try to make use of tools available on the web to portray a good image of your blog and you are more likely to draw loyal advertisers to it.