If you are reading this post, you've probably already heard of BuySellAds.com, the advertising marketplace that targets the design and development niche. We asked Todd Garland, the man behind the site, to shed a little light on how a publisher can find success on BSA. On a side note, Freelance Review recently started using BSA and we've been very happy with the results so far.

What is the best way for a new publisher to attract their first advertiser through BuySellAds.com?

With BSA it all comes down to quality – for both advertisers and publishers. Like most businesses, there isn’t a silver bullet. Creating quality content that does well selling ads is hard, just like building a quality product that does well advertising is hard. Once you have the quality content in place you need to work on marketing that content through twitter, your rss feed, email subscriptions, etc. Unfortunately, great content isn’t just “discovered”, it takes a bit of marketing to get your stuff out there and to get it to attract a lot of traffic.

Another piece of advice is not having a cluttered site. Make the ad real estate on your site feel exclusive and well organized. Let the ads breathe with some white space, too.

Is there a method you recommend for setting prices on new ad zones?

Pricing is one of the hardest parts of our business. The best way to go about pricing is to look through the BuySellAds.com/buy directory and find sites similar to yours in traffic, twitter followers, rss subscribers, etc. See what their pricing looks like and how many ads are sold vs. available. Try to get a feel for what is working for them. Size, placement, and traffic are all important factors when pricing you ad zones.

In general, do you think a publisher can make more through BuySellAds.com by having many, less expensive ad zones or by having fewer, more expensive ad zones?

Great question. With a fewer, but more expensive strategy, you are in between branding vs. conversion when it comes to pricing. With a more, but less expensive strategy, you are more likely to make your site feel “cheap” the ads tend to cannibalize each other. So, my vote is for somewhere in the middle. I believe that a healthy strategy focuses on creating scarcity to maintain demand, while not being too scarce as to force pricing into an inflated “branding” play.

If a new publisher sets pricing too low in the beginning, will that make it difficult to raise rates later on as the site gets more traffic and will they be stuck in a "cheap" rut?

It is important to set pricing at the level where you expect to be for 2-3 months. Advertisers do not like change, and since the goal of BuySellAds.com is to help you create a reliable, recurring, revenue stream changing prices on them often will have negative effects.

In your opinion, is it better for a new publisher to price low to attract advertisers or to price higher and "hold out" until advertisers think there is enough value to place an ad?

What is important is to get some spots filled, because that makes it easier to sell additional spots. So, let’s say you have a sidebar ad zone where you are selling up to 6 125 x 125 ads. You sell the first two for $50 each, and once those two are sold you increase the rate to the true value of the ad zone at $75. Then, you leave the first two advertisers in there at $50 until you have sold all 4 of the other spots at the proper $75 rate. Now your ad zone is sold out, and you increase the rate of one of the $50 advertisers to $75. If they cancel, you wait to sell their empty spot for the $75 rate before increasing the other $50 advertiser to $75. The goal here is to keep the ad zone as full as possible as it makes it easier to make new sales.

How does BuySellAds.com help publishers find advertisers?

We do many proposals every day. While doing these proposals we make recommendations to other advertisers in the system. We also have some nice features built in that help us automate this a bit. And, we’re constantly in touch with our advertisers, keeping a pulse on things, making suggestions, etc. It is a lot of work.

Have you seen any strategies from some of the more successful publishers on BuySellAds.com that might be useful for new publishers to implement?

Yes. Standard ad sizes help smaller sites get more advertisers. And, of course, quality content and increasing traffic.

Is there a certain type of content that seems to be more popular with advertisers using BuySellAds.com (such as lists, galleries, freebies, tutorials, etc.)?

Original content tends to do the best. Higher quality content (I must sound like a broken record by now) does well.

Any other advice for new publishers on BuySellAds.com (or those who want to eventually apply)?

You will not be successful at making money from selling ads unless you are passionate about the content, website, and community you are a part of.