1. Search Engine Marketing – part2: Contextual Advertising
This is the second part of our Search Engine Marketing series. Following last week article on Pay per
click, this week, I will go over contextual advertising, explaining what it is, how it could benefit your
business and share a few tips on to make it a successful piece of your online marketing strategy.
As always, let’s start with a quick definition:
Contextual advertising is a form of targeted advertising for advertisements appearing on
websites or other media, such as content displayed in mobile browsers. The advertisements
themselves are selected and served by automated systems based on the content displayed to the
user.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextual_advertising
How contextual advertising works
Google AdSense is the major contextual advertising service providers, along with Yahoo! Publisher
Network and Microsoft adCenter. These systems will scan the content of a website and based on the
keywords found, will provide advertisements geared towards what the visitors are viewing. These
context ads are generally displayed on the website itself, in pop-up/ flash/Ajax ads.
Of course, the ads are only displayed on websites that have installed the service provider JavaScript
code, enabling the relevant advertisements to be shown.
Below is an example of AdSense ads (highlighted in blue) found on Canadian Finance Blog (great website
for those interested in personal finance)
Source: http://www.canadianfinanceblog.com
© 2009-2010 Loic Jeanjean, on behalf of AdvisorWebsites.com

2. How could it benefit your business
If you decide to add this type of ads on your site, you will get paid every time a visitor clicks on a link
contained in the Google Adsense portion of your website. This can monetize your website traffic by
earning payouts. You should only allow relevant ads, ideally from quality advertisers and make sure the
content advertise in not create any sort of visual clutter.
You could also become an advertiser and pay to have your business displayed on other websites. You
will be billed on a per-click or per impression basis, and since this type of advertisement is quite
targeted; you have more chance to see your links be clicked, resulting in higher traffic, and increase in
revenue.
Links and resources
- Google AdSense - Google AdSense is a free program that enables website publishers of all sizes
to display relevant Google ads and earn.
- Yahoo! Publisher Network - Simply display ads that are relevant to the content of your site and
earn money from qualified clicks. No investment is required and setup is quick and easy.
- Microsoft Advertising adCenter - Display your product or service to as many as 78 million
potential customers.
To learn more about online advertising, contextual advertising, pay-per-click or banner ads, email us at
info@advisorwebsites.com , follow us on Twitter @advisorwebsite, become a fan of AdvisorWebsites on
Facebook or simply call us toll-free at 1-866-500-4113. Once again, thanks for reading and make sure
you leave a comment below.
Loic Jeanjean
Online Marketing Strategist
Advisor Websites
© 2009-2010 Loic Jeanjean, on behalf of AdvisorWebsites.com