I'm still kicking this around. I'm sure there's opportunities for schools to make some cash from their website and these opportunities are being left on the table.

Last year I was beating my head against a very hard wall with adverts. The moral dilemma was solved IHMO. But, selling the ads was the stumbling block. Either the school or myself would need to hit the phones. Then, there would be the approval and endorsement issues for each advertiser.

Now, I'm thinking of schools being affiliates. Same moral dilemma, same solution (kids at school don't see them). Same approval and endorsement issues, however, there isn't the repeating need to churn through company after company. Pick several affiliate schemes and stick with them.

What is an affiliate? Essentially, all you're doing is linking to another site, let's say Amazon, or eBay. People follow that link and buy something. When they do, you receive a commission on the sale.

One big affiliate, making millions a week is moneysupermarket.com another is confused.com. All they do is ask you to fill out a form, say for car insurance. They then scrape dozens of car insurers' websites and auto fill out their forms, gather and order those results. If you click through one, and buy, they get their commission. It's fairly trivial, technologically speaking.

What school governor would object to being an affiliate for Amazon, eBay, eBookers, Admiral car insurance, Tesco... All the big high street and web business names have affiliate programs.

Currently, I'm experimenting with eBay, and mobile phones. Take a look at my own, favourite phone—Nokia N70. Boy, it's cheap! And my upgrade heaven, the Nokia N95... Sadly, still too expensive to justify, at the mo (three hundred pounds). If you're not a member, join eBay. (When you do, and buy something—within 30 days, I'll get £7.)

But this is just one affiliate scheme, there are hundreds.

Every parent needs to buy insurance, car, house, life... If they know they're buying it cheap, and helping the local school. If the local population learns too, that they can buy insurance from the school and give some commission, not to the fat cats at moneysupermarket, but to the poor, deserving, hard working...

Want to buy a book? A flight? Something from Tescos?

I have no way, as yet, of gauging or forecasting the size of the income streams from several good affiliate schemes. I guess, it would be Darwinian dropping the bad, extending the good. But, my gut thinks it would be several thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Having spent the Summer holiday researching this, my gut is well educated (and optimistic).


# Posted by Steve Hooker at 7/9/07; 8:54:58 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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How to make money from a school's website

BostonHerald.com: Bill: Having ads in schools does not make the grade - Business - : "BOSTON - Critics say it's an insidious threat to school children - responsible for everything from obesity and family stress to gender stereotyping and financial woes.

It's marketing, and lawmakers in Massachusetts are weighing a bill that would ban virtually all advertising in schools - creating "commercial free zones" from kindergarten through high school.

The proposed ban, described as the most sweeping in the country, would prohibit everything from scoreboard ads to book covers plastered with product logos. It would even ban news broadcasts in classrooms and music broadcasts on school buses that carry advertising.

The schools are selling something to advertisers that isn't theirs to sell-access to children," complains Alex Molnar, a professor of education. "Students should not be sold as resources.""

"I send my children to school for an education, not to build a relationship with corporate America."

"We are bombarded by images trying to persuade us to consume," says Xavier, a high-school student in California. "Ads in school are an insult to kids' minds."

CBSnews.com: Doctors: Kids Are Too Vulnerable To Ads, Pediatricians Group Urge Partial Ban on Junk Food Advertising And Lament Ads Invading Schools - CBS News: "Children and teens need to be taught to be more skeptical viewers of ads, says a leading group of pediatricians. "Children and adolescents view more than 40,000 ads per year on TV alone," according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Kids younger than 8 years old "do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value," the committee reports.

Advertisers have slowly but steadily infiltrated school systems around the country," the committee writes. "The '3Rs' have now become the '4Rs,' with the fourth R being 'retail.' Ads are now appearing on school buses, in gymnasiums, on book covers, and even in bathroom stalls," notes the AAP.

"Today's kids see ads in many places, including TV, the Internet, and magazines, and need "media literacy" lessons, the committee says.

Half the ads young people see feature food, according to the AAP committee. But "Healthy foods are advertised less than 3 percent of the time," according to the report. "Children rarely see a food advertisement for broccoli."

Teachers Union Says No to Ads in Schools: "Seattle Schools are inundated every week with promotional items, corporate-sponsored curriculums, marketing Œcontests¹ and gimmicks.

A year ago, the district signed a 5-year exclusive Œpouring rights contract with the Coca-Cola Corporation in exchange for a commission on the Coke products sold to kids.

Last April, the district signed a contract with N2H2 permitting banner ads on web pages seen by children at school in exchange for a filtering service.

Individual principals in many secondary schools require all students to watch commercial ?TV every day in exchange for the use of some television equipment (ŒChannel One). "

Consumer Groups Lobby to Remove Ads From Schools ""We are writing to ask for your help to turn your industry's conscience into a reality, and to protect our children and their education from aggressive marketers," the letter reads. "We believe it is wrong for a company to use compulsory-school-attendance laws to force a captive audience of children to listen to advertising. As most practitioners in the field recognize, successful advertising depends on the willing participation of both advertiser and consumer. BusRadio and Channel One violate this fundamental principle."

Bad publicity forces ZapMe! to end program with school districts: "11/21/00 -- Some 2,000 schools across the country are facing a tough choice: Shut down high-speed Internet computer labs they received from the ZapMe! Corp. or find the money to pay the company big bucks to keep the labs running.

Two years ago, the San Ramon, Calif.-based ZapMe! Corp. offered to outfit schools with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free computer labs and technical support.

In exchange, the schools had to agree that the computers would be used for at least four hours a day and the company could feature advertisements on its "netspace" and monitor students' Web browsing habits--by gender, grade level, and school zip code--but not student name."

"We would be really disappointed if we had to lose this," says Scott M. Levengood, technology coordinator at Hamilton Middle School in Baltimore. "The inconvenience of a small flag of advertising on the screen is nothing compared to the benefits that this brings to the kids."

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 12/6/07; 11:03:26 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Against ads in schools

MediaWise.org: Commercial Advertising In Schools: "Business involvement in schools has a long history. Scholarships, donations, and mentoring projects are often positive for schools and businesses alike. But at what point does corporate involvement target students not as learners, but as consumers and potential customers?
Did you know?

In elementary, middle and high schools direct advertising to students can be found on:

• Book covers: free book covers with ads, such as Frosted Flakes and Lays Potato Chips, are distributed to students. In 1998 over half of American students, 25 million, received book covers (Consumer Reports, 1998).
• "Educational posters" in hallways advertise candy such as Skittles, 3 Musketeers and Starburst (Education Digest, 2000).
• School lunch menus. Brand name foods are served, advertised and promoted in school cafeterias (Education Digest, 2000).
• Reward coupons: McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza provide coupons for pop, french fries, burgers or pizza as a reward in reading programs (Education Digest, 2000).
• School buses: Some districts have sold ad space on the sides and even the tops of school buses (Time Magazine, 1999).
• Teaching materials: industry teaching units, videos, and contests may incorporate products, brands or corporate viewpoints (Consumer Reports, 1998).
• Channel One: Viewed daily in 12,000 middle schools and high schools by about 8 million teenagers, students are required to watch a 12 minute program: 10 minutes of info-news and 2 minutes of commercials (The Center for Commercial-Free Public Education).
• Commercial search engines, web sites and student newspapers (United States General Accounting Office, 2000).
• School Web sites supported by businesses that include direct advertising aimed at students and parents (The Christian Science Monitor, 2001).
• Athletic fields, scoreboards, gyms, libraries, playgrounds, classrooms: Corporate donors are recognized for their donations by placing their names or logos in prominent locations (New York Times, 2000).
• School events paid for or sponsored by corporations, i.e. Homecoming sponsored by Dr. Pepper (Time Magazine, 1999).
• Soft drink machines: schools are bargaining for exclusive contracts with soft drink suppliers like Coke and Pepsi (Manning, 1999).
• Fundraising: school groups receive a percentage of sales of branded products (United States General Accounting Office, 2000).
• Student organizers and other products sold in schools to students. The school receives a small percentage for items sold in return for advertising (United States General Accounting Office, 2000)."

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 12/6/07; 11:02:49 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Ads in the US

It's hardly worth anyone's while to sell, manage and run ads on a site that has very little traffic, and you have to examine the traffic you are receiving, take out the search engines, which, for many sites is a very high proportion and the rest of the junk. An advertiser, a savvy advertiser, will want to see your logs, they'll want to ensure they are getting value for money, they will want real people reading their ads, real people reading your website.

I've been asked several times, if I can supply my advertising plug-in as a stand alone. That is, they have existing sites, or are about to build a site, in house... And don't want one of mine.

At first I was interested in re-working my plug-in such that it could be used in this way. But, as I look at these sites, I know, in my gut, that these sites will have a very low traffic rate. There is no changing news, there is no reason to return again, and again. Traffic will be low, therefore, the inventory will be low. Worse, there'll be no way, with the current websites to increase this. At least with a weblog, you know if you keep on posting new news, your traffic will increase. If you post more local, topical news, even turning your school's site into a local discussion group, or local social network, which you can with our sites (or with a second or third duplicate of our sites) your traffic can rocket. As can your ad inventory and your income.

As an example here's a small, not very interesting site, go once, no need to ever go again.
Pockington Montessori School
Another school, with updated news, but dumped deep inside the site as PDFs.
Glebe House School and Nursery
A secondary school, with a large site, but nothing new, nothing blog-ish. Most traffic will be search bots.
Dover College
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 12/6/07; 9:10:54 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Ads and traffic

I've just had an enquiry regarding school website advertising. "Do I find and place ads for other school sites?" No.

I'm offering, as part of our school websites, a plug-in for the management of ads on our school sites. We supply the documentation needed to find and win ads; methods and lesson plans for the children to create the ads within the school and the plug-in, which is an easy for teachers to manage, monitor and report on the campaigns. Easy to manage being the key—for teachers and local plumbers, or shop owners, or mortgage advisers, or...

As we're including the tool as part of our package we won't be charging for it, nor taking any cut from your income. Of course we'd help, advise, support as we do with our blogs, this being a part of our blogs. But, again, as with our blogs, it's up to the school to fill the blog with good, current news, and it will be up to the school to fill the ad inventory with good, local ads.

Were we to find, sell, and create the ads, then we'd have to take quite a slice of the revenue. National ads aren't so locally targeted and won't pay top dollar. Each ad should be approved by the Head or governors, too. The impact wouldn't be cool. We'd be pimping off the school, it would be easily seen as such. Thus, the moral dilemma of placing ads on a school site would shift against the idea.

Further, it would be be highly beneficial for a school to find ads via the parents, governors and friends of the school—a huge well connected network. If they thought one penny was going to a man in Telford to spend on beer and disco dancing, they'd be highly disinclined to help. Think of the school fayre, would those volunteers be so numerous if half the money was going to the geezer who thought of the idea?

Further still, were a plumber, shop owner or mortgage adviser to advertise; for them to know that every single penny goes directly to the school, they'd be much, much more likely to be sold. Were I to call, from afar, doing the advertising sales pitch, would he listen? Would he be immediately suspicious? "Oh, yeah? And how much of a cut are you taking?" Where as, if he was approached by a member of staff, some children, a parent, better a customer...

I know this is extra work, schools would like to have less work, but we're talking large money here... It will be easy work, it will fit in with the curriculum.

Instead of raising money for a school mini bus you'd be raising it for a school Lear jet. # Posted by Steve Hooker at 8/6/07; 12:37:14 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Clarity of school ads

Most read yesterday Rankings compiled on 6/6/07; 11:49:39 PM.     Site   Reads   Search engine reads   Total human reads   Member reads 1.   Donemana Primary   1,258   10   1,248   127 2.   Pudsey Grangefield College   586   23   563   0 3.   Walsall Schools   399   77   322   37 4.   Pudsey Grangefield (media)   320   274   46   0 5.   Bodnant Infants   255   115   140   32

Great to see such traffic in one day, especially when you think that most school sites see this type of traffic over several years.

Graig y Don did 1,510 in one day in October 2006. So, I'm looking for continual updates from every school. More updates means more repeat traffic... More traffic would mean more advertising inventory—if only schools would take my advertising package. Ads are only shown to non-pupils, outside school—solving the moral dilemma, and the ads are created in-school by the children, as part of their art and design, writing for different audiences and any other bit of the curriculum we could think of.

Just think, what money a school could earn and the commerce children would learn along the way. (No, we wouldn't take any cuts, all monies would go directly to the school.)

I still think this is such a good idea, I wish, I wish, I could find a school that thinks similarly. Perhaps it would have to be a secondary school? Perhaps there, the need is balanced more toward a grown up world, than in primaries?

Whatever, it's such a shame to leave money (ad inventory) on the table. If Donemana could keep up this level of traffic everyday and if they'd sell all their ads...

1,248 x 365 x 10.8p = £49,196.16

Still, if Bodnant could sell all their ad inventory too...

140 x 365 x 10.8p = £5,518.8

And local businesses would love to advertise on such a site. It would make them look so good.
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 7/6/07; 8:43:19 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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1200 page views in one day
Adverts on school sites
Schools leaving money on the table

Site   Reads   Search engine reads   Total homan reads   Member reads 1.   Ysgol Craig y Don   1,484   340   1,144   184 2.   Walsall Schools   1,477   607   870   57 3.   Pudsey Grangefield College   1,166   93   1,073   120 4.   Croft Community School   615   185   430   29 5.   Waterloo Primary School   613   171   442   196

Huge day! Now, had there been ads on these two 1,000 humans hits sites, that'd have been £108 for those 1,000 page views. It's interesting to note the number of member reads too. Obviously, many will be the posters of the updated news items, maybe some others of the members, commenters. Even Waterloo would have come close to £50 for the day's hits.

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 18/10/06; 1:36:55 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Two sites break the 1,000 human barrier!!!

Again, the school advertising media pack is moving forward. I've been looking deeper in the statisics as saw that a fair sized proportion of the traffic an individual site receives can be from search engines and other bots.

Advertisers wouldn't want to pay for these ad impressions, since they're non-human. Though, from my research, other sites that offer ads don't mention them, likely they charge for these void showings. I think that's a bit of a cheat. In fact it can be a big cheat.

So playing fair, I've begun monitoring these void viewings, and will not count them as an ad impression.

This is a financial shock to schools who were expecting a large sum, likely that only half of the views I've been working from will be real people. Also, on very high traffic days, when kids from within school are posting, so too will the ad impression hit count be lower than expected, since now, we'll also not be showing ads to working children.

It is then an unknown, how many paying impressions there will be. Suffice to say the often repeated adage, more traffic, more income, still holds true. Averaged out over a year, I'd still expect a site like Craig y Don to make £10-30k, while the less viewed/used sites, like Bodnat should clear £2-5k easily—providing they can sell their inventory. (I believe many, many businesses would kill to advertise on such a prestigious local site.)

Of course, Bodnant can double, even triple their traffic or even more. They could become the central focal point on the web for their catchment area's community. Perhaps spreading wider to the whole of Prestatyn.


# Posted by Steve Hooker at 12/10/06; 1:41:03 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Not counting search engines and other bots

I'm busy adding to the media pack One of the important items is the morally contentious issue of kids seeing ads.

Demographics

You know where we are. You know the area. Your business is here. Predominantly you're talking to grown-ups: parents and staff and all who have something to do with the school, be they neighbours or civil servants. Our local reach is good and growing deeper.

Children do not see ads while they're working on the site at school. That would be like having ads on their text books, distracting.

Another important recent addition is the risk companies with bad reputations have in advertising on a blog. And the rewards for good companies.

Also, plenty of content, editoral and promotional ideas that need to be edited or achieved by the school. Like:
These would need to be crossed off or happening. The document is meant to be fluid, were it on a school's site, and the Head logged in, there'd be edit buttons everywhere.


# Posted by Steve Hooker at 12/10/06; 12:20:59 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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No ads on kids' text books

I've put together the first draft of the media pack for advertising on a school's website. A media pack is what all magazines, newspapers commonly send out to prospective advertisers.

It tells, most importantly, the price of various ads, and the mag's circulation, or in our case traffic. Who the website is aimed at, its principles and content. (Some dynamic figures are for the site the page is read from—currently mine, and some still need to be calculated.)

In our case it also tells the prospect what they'll get out of it. Not just promoting their business, but also the good things that rub off when they advertise on a local school's site. All that good will, and increased social capital, adds to a companies reputation in the local area. To be given the OK by a local school is 'as good as it locally gets.' It's a recommendation that any business will crave for.

Of course, I foresee troubles here. Should a company be, not very good, then the truth will out, particularly on a public blog, where anybody can post. But these bridges will have to be crossed at the time. Ultimately, it is the school which decides what ads run or are pulled.


# Posted by Steve Hooker at 10/10/06; 4:36:03 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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School ads: media pack

I spotted this, from the US, an entire school district, took free websites, and the supplying company could place adverts on them, to recoup their investment. Everybody seemed happy, except:
I've heard from one school, who's PTA were for the extra income, while the governors were not. They loved the innocence of the website without ads. They were also worried that advertising sites may lead to click throughs to 'nasties' like gambling. A compromise would be only one side was for ads and they should be for local attractions, library, museums, etc.. But these would be very, very low paying.

I could with technical trickery, hide ads from kids. All internal hits, i.e. hits from within school, would be presented with a different template, without ads. There could even be a tick box, so parents, or others that are offended could see the no ads template too. But this cuts down on the number of eyeballs.

I prefer educating kids, not keeping them blindfolded. I have this issue with my children. I try to explain that ads are mostly lies, particularly ads for toys, beefburgers and breakfast cereals. I try to deconstruct, decode them while we watch, while I'm nagged at the cereal aisle. I feel I'm on top of the pester power, mostly. But they're still quite young.

I want the children involved in all stages of the business. Getting, creating, monitoring the ads. Perhaps turning down some, as being in appropriate—yes, the content and type of adverts are the responsibility of the school, govenors, PTAs, Heads, kids councils, all have editorial vetos. I believe that most of the ads will be aimed at parents (pubs, curry houses, supermarkets—the local benefactor vibe) those that are aimed at kids (fastfood, toy or sweet shops—pester power) need to be carefully created, explained thoroughly, with advice (on junk food, brushing teeth) on the click through landing pages. Where else could a school have influence on ads targeted at kids?

I'd like to teach children that the Internet is not a walled garden, where everything is fluffy toys, and cute games.

We cannot remain blinkered to sly advertising of bad products. We cannot pretend that the Internet is all good.

We can do this, with or without ads on school websites. We should do this with or without. I think it easier, if there are ads, if the school and everybody is involved, if the website is a good earner, something serious.

I believe that there are teachable moments with ads, with the creation of ads. It's a big, bad, beautiful capitalist world out there, let's help our children be prepared for it, and able to exploit it where they can.

Ads on school websites aren't immoral if they're created and controled and explained to children. Morally, I feel we should do this!

Morally, I believe it is each school's duty to pursue the local MacDonalds for advertising cash. After all, there is healthy eating on the curriculum now. Balanced diets can contain a Big Mac, once a week. McDonalds no doubt has plenty of information on balanced diets, which could be used on the school's landing page. Let's exploit the advertisers need to be benefactors and teach the kids about the big, bad world. How many McDonalds logos are there currently in school? What cash/benefit did the school get? What teachable moments? Such was always as MacDonalds wanted. MacDonalds = sport. Plainly, an expensive lie, aimed at children.

Fight back!

(Those parents/kids that don't want to be involved can always click the no ads button.)

Or, schools should reinforce innocence: it is not a school's duty to teach about crossing the road, stranger danger, too much salt/fat/sugar, not enough exercise/vegetables/teeth brushing, big bad Internet, smiling thin people eating beef burgers, ecstatically happy kids and their friends playing with expensive toys, nutritionally cardboard cereals with free cheap toys and brightly coloured packaging...
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 10/10/06; 10:27:44 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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School ads, the moral dilemma

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 6/10/06; 12:11:00 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Pretend ads

Guardian: on research by the online marketing trade body the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) Pop-ups shot down by surfers but 'relevant' web advertising thrives: Well, we all hate pop ups and click them away. We know this.

Here's some bullet points drawn from the article that bolster my already gurded loins:

• online advertising spending soared more than 40% to just shy of £1bn in the first half of this year
• advertisers were realising that more tailored campaigns were the way forward
• engaging and relevant advertising online is doing well
• boosted by faster broadband, surging online retail and consumers spending more time on the web.
• industry experts predict boom times will continue
• more companies, particularly in the consumer goods sector, wake up to the web's reach and versatility.
• Britain's overall online advertising spend at £917m

Yip. Local advertisers are going to like advertising on a local school site. Local traffic, great affinity to adverts supporting their local school. It's a killer.

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 5/10/06; 10:48:49 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Preaching to the choir on local school adverts

This is where I'm at right now. Getting the user interface looking part way there. Displaying some results, gathering and processing some stats. I've used made up data, obviously, but tried to get it to be kinda accurate of a few months in use.

Next is the way ads are created (mainly by the kids themselves) and uploaded, by the oppo. With initial data for management.

Then, how you (the Head, parent, or governor) present your sales pitch with a dozen 6 year old children, to the manager of the local Tescos. (Gotta get them leaderboard sized ads sold ;-) I'm sure you could get the local superstore to buy £360 of space for 10,000 showings.

Bodnant at worst day 50 hits per day would show it for 6 months.

Craig y Don, at top rate 1,500 hits per day would show it for 6 days!

The data in the thumbnail assumes that more local shops, double glazing, metal bashing, hotels, sports centres, hairdressers, mortgage consultants... Will plump for the £60 and £40 packs — the little ads on the left of the screen shot.


# Posted by Steve Hooker at 4/10/06; 10:16:28 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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BannerAd plugin version 0.1

I've moved things about on Craig y Don's front page (you'll need to click the new CSS 3 column with ads link on the Don of the yellow Craig y Don graphic).

We're not too far off getting real customers and much needed income from the site!

Cash for blogging! Heh.

The children will make the adverts, with crayons, it'll be scanned in, uploaded, reduced, added to the list of revolving ads along with details of how many impressions the advertiser has bought. Easy.

All Craig y Don then have to do, is keep each format/ad position full of advertisers. Each ad will randomly show till they run out of paid page impressions.
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 4/10/06; 12:09:47 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Rearranged graphics for ads

FT: Smaller brands to boost web ad spend: "Growth is being driven by smaller advertisers, with companies in the 10 biggest categories spending a lower share of their budgets online than the industry average between 2001 and 2005."

Smaller (local) companies :-)

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 2/10/06; 12:05:32 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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School site advertising...

This is a good page to check, everyday: Most read yesterday

Let's see what sort of ad inventory they'd have. Using the different sized adverts with different CPM (Cost Per Thousand) They add up to £108 CPM (per 1,000) or 10.8 pence (per page).

Craig y Don
Pudsey Grangefield Maths & Computing College
Waterloo Primary School
Croft Community School
King's Hill Primary
Bodnant Infants
Beechdale Primary School
Rough Hay Primary
Salisbury Primary

Craig y Don, aren't doing anything special, just posting more often. If they can triple their posting rate, they'll probably triple their traffic, and triple their ad inventory. If they can quadruple... :-)

That's a lot of ads to sell.
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 29/9/06; 9:28:26 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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More traffic = more ad inventory

Just in from Craig y Don... "We're going for it. This is exciting, if we can afford a new hall in 3 years time, we'll call it the Steve Hooker Gymnasium!" His 'gifted children' will do the leaflet designing, advertising blurb, and sums from my starting point.

Excellent. Though, from a school business point of view I'd think the Blog Gymnasium would be better. To make a difference is great, I'd like the glory, for sure, but for years to come, it would always be in the pupils, staff and parents minds that the more they blog, the more money the school can earn. Heh! Push it far enough, they could have their own private jet :-) Pretty funny for arriving at away rugby matches.

And using the kids as a design, copy writing resource is just peachy! There's so much PR mileage there, so much natural goodwill, and all those emotional heart strings—ouch! It's not quite kids out with begging bowls, or kids in workhouses, close, but not quite. They're learning the ways of the real, capitalist world. They're creating their own product (eyeballs on their website) and exploiting it, for themselves and future genarations.

Let's pull those heart strings. Make 'em weep :-) And cough up the dough!
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 25/9/06; 4:07:00 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Pilot adverts site is go!

For schools, to get good quality local traffic, they need local news. National news and national traffic will also be welcome, especially if there can be a local spin to the story.

Look in the local press. Ask staff and parents for news ideas. Preferably local iideas. Discuss the state of the roads, yesterday's weather. No matter how mundane, how world shattering, it's content, content, content!

If governors are on local councils, parish or town, they'll have inside info about local issues, tap them for stories, get them to post them, themselves. It's a win-win, the councilor raises their own profile, the publicises the issues that matter to them, the local community get a chance to discuss these issues, and the local school gets traffic.

Get more reviews from children: what did they do this weekend? Went horse riding, skating, cinema? Parents went out for a meal? Went shopping, which local shops? Had a new carpet fitted? Get the names of the companies, set a task for the kids to write something about that experience, make sure the company's name is spelled correctly, print out the news item, fax it to the company, give them the sales call.

OK, OK! What's a carpet fitter got to do with a local school? Not a lot. Who cares? It's local news that Mrs Jones had a carpet fitted, and this is little Jimmie Jones' account of it. If said carpet fitters will give the school £4, in my book, that's got a lot to do with the school. I'm sure it's true of any Head too, with tight budgets, and a pot of £80k at the end of a year, most would almost dance naked on the school roof. (A great news item BTW :-)

Make use of the parents. They all work locally. Nobble them. Give them a rate card and pack (coming soon), to take to their boss. Be that a greasy welding company, a window cleaner, a national bank... All bosses can spend a little locally, they all want to appear as a well wishing, altruistic, philanthropic local benefactor. This type of good will rubs off on a business. The bigger the ad the more blog items the kids, teachers are going to post... The more your school's site will show up in a Google search for "Llandudno bank" or "Llandudno welder."

In Google, searchers are always looking for other real people. Real people are interesting! It's true! Would you rather read a local carpet fitter's brochure, or little Jimmie's account?

So, someone's found your school site because they looked for a carpet fitter. They discover it's full of local stuff. Local people. Local voices. Everyday there's more, and yet more. Do you really think they'll never return? Sure they will! Many will be your school's alma mater. Certainly they'll know some people who are already members of your site, parents or kids. The result: one captured repeat visitor. You've hit an emotional nerve!
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 25/9/06; 3:06:38 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Local traffic for local schools

Local advertising is a tough and competitive game. Look in the local press, the local Yellow Pages, local anything: football ground, any notice board, and local publication. Take note of the flyers that come around your doors.  Think hotels, pubs, restaurants, pizza delivery, curry houses. Garages, furniture shops, double glazing. Insurance brokers, mortgage advisers. All these businesses need to advertise locally, some very locally. All these businesses really, really want to be thought of well and an association with the local school, is a killer for them.

Think of the pizza delivery, with a page in your school site (a click through, landing page from their advert). Someone searches in Google for "pizza delivery Llandudno." Who's that surfer gonna call? Pizza delivery are going to kill to get inside your site. The front page ad tells all those parents that the pizza delivery is nice, because it helps the school. Their business is going to rocket!

To get these local ads, each school needs proven traffic. (Even 50 page views a day will earn: 50 x 30 days = 1,500/mo with a full inventory of £108 CPM that's still £162 a month!)

So, how does a local schoool get local traffic?

# Posted by Steve Hooker at 25/9/06; 1:58:12 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Local ads for local schools

My page views, across all my Walsallschools, Dudleyschools, Brum, Wolves, and Sandwell and Educatr sites amount to 415,180 since July last year. Or an average of 27,700 a month. Not bad for someone building traffic from no base — schools already have an eager, awaiting audience.

As I blog more, as I blog better, I get increasing traffic. If I stop, traffic decreases.

I need to track the school zeitgeist. Here's Google's world (USA centric) zeitgeist for September. And the UK version for 2005-2002. Pity I can't find one for searches from schools. Though I can guess, it's going to be lesson plans, literacy hour, stuff that's helps a Head, or an ICT Coordinator.

Look at my referers for yesterday: 16 hits from Google for lesson plans.

For me, my target audience is Heads, and ICT teachers in the UK. It also brings in governors and parents. Mainly I think of the customers I have already, when I write blog posts.

But my target audience is national, so it's harder for me to find advertisers, Google's adSence, the little text ads, are a way, but are useless at bringing me cash :-(. So far, I've earned $22 since April, and that's across my personal site too. Sure, I could try and optimise them more, but... The income, just isn't there, I'm sure.

With a $1.20 CPM, I'd need to really, really hone the ads to very, very accurately mirror the page's content to lift my CTR (Click Through Rate) which Google pays me on. And I fear, education, Telford, and blogging, just ain't high CTR payers. Now, if my site was about flower delivery, or expensive niche cars...
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 25/9/06; 1:16:42 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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My traffic as an example

All my calculations, thus far have been modeled on Craig y Don's 1,000 page views in one day. Maintain this for one month, sell all the ad spaces at the full rate, and they'll be earning £3,240 a month.

But, on Sunday they pulled only 230 page views. Let's see what that would bring, maintained over one month...

Remember, the figures in the illustration are for the income that space could bring if the inventory is fully sold. So the £216 large advert, due to its prime position, is still sold at £36 CPM (Cost Per Thousand — M is Roman Numerals for 1,000). But as they're only achieving 200 hits per day x 30 days = 6,000 page views a month

6 x £36 = £216/mo possible income.

Summary: if a site isn't getting the traffic (which is something we can work on) they can still achieve £648 a month! If they can sell a full inventory of ads. Even if they can only sell a quarter of their inventory, it's still £129 a month! Bottom line, for doing, what they're already doing, that is blogging, a school can MAKE MONEY!

But, we can plainly see why more traffic results in much more inventory to sell, and more potential income to the school.
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 25/9/06; 10:05:16 AM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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Reality bites ads

Were you to appear at the local shop demanding money for an ad on the local school site, the shopkeeper would, no doubt, wearly pass you a few quid, just to get rid of you.

Tell the shopkeeper the site has 1,000 visitors a day, many of them repeat, most local. Parents, kids, neighbours. The great and the good of the local community, drop some town burghers' names, these are members of the site, and some post news items. Tell the shopkeeper of the reviewers, all 450 of them, who like to and will write about local shops. All those parents, friends of parents, all will see the shop's ad and think favourably of the shop.

The shopkeeper will know if it works, because he'll see the click throughs. To where? To his landing page, as he'll probably not have a site of his own. On that page will be a form where happy kids, parents can send him an email, saying how nice his shop is. Goodwill will flow, literally.

For £30, he'll get 7,500 eyeballs. And loads and loads of love :-) Local love! Love from around the corner, up the street. And a postcard to put into his shop window: "I advertise on CraigyDon.conwy.sch.uk" With a heart in the background :-)

All this with a professional sales pack and presentation.
# Posted by Steve Hooker at 23/9/06; 11:51:38 PM to the Ads for schoools dept.
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The local shop's sales call