How to Establish Web Advertising Rates

A website owner's advertising rates depend on several factors. One of the most important of these is the amount of traffic that a website gets. Other key factors in setting rates include the size of the ad, and the comparable rates that are currently being charged by other websites.

Instructions

1. Determine your average monthly traffic numbers. Calculate this as the number of views your site gets or the number of unique visitors that it gets. Most Web publishers and advertisers are interested in the overall number of page views. Track your numbers for several months so that you have concrete data. There are many traffic trackers available. One free resource is Statcounter.com.

2. Check other websites to see how much they are charging for their ads. The ads you look at should be comparable to the size of the ads you want to sell. If you want to sell a banner ad, check out the going rates of banner ads on similar websites. You can often do this directly on their sites by going to their "Advertising" page. This will tell you their traffic level as well as how much they are charging for ads.

3. Calculate how much they are charging for ads per 1,000 page views. This is the rate that advertisers are looking for. To do this, divide the site's monthly traffic number in thousands by the ad price. For instance, if the traffic number is 100,000 per month and the ad price is $100, you would divide 100 by 100 and end up with a price of $1. This is their price for advertisers to reach 1,000 viewers. Your price should be similar, or you risk being priced out of the advertising market.