I’d Rather Be Writing (idratherbewriting.com) is one of the most popular sites where technical writers and engineers go to stay updated with the latest technical writing news, trends, and information in the industry, especially concerning API documentation. Because of this, I can help increase your product or service’s visibility more than any other technical writing site online.
How I help increase product visibility
I mainly help increase visibility of your product primarily through ad impressions and page clicks. An impression occurs when someone loads a page where your ad is visible. A page click happens when the user clicks that ad. Note that whether users choose to click the ad depends on how relevant and timeline the ad graphic and link are.
In 2021, idratherbewriting.com had 1,865,635 page views, or about 5,111 page views a day. More specifically, users created 1,266,999 sessions, with 1.29 pages per session and an average of 1:19 minutes per session. For details about how many page views, sessions, and other analytics information, see the Site analytics.
Ad space options and costs
You can select from several different spaces or services below. The availability and cost for each ad space is as follows:
| Ad space | Size | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|
| Inline ads | Inline graphic and article link | $1,800/year |
| Sidebar ads | Sidebar graphic and article link | $1,000/year |
| Product reviews | 800-1,000 words | $1,000/post |
| Inline text snippets | 2-4 sentences | $2,000/year |
| Newsletter banners | 400 x 60px or 1 paragraph | $1,200/year |
| Footer banners | 728x90 px banner at bottom of post | $1,500/year |
For billing, I usually send you an invoice through PayPal (unless you prefer another method, such as a wire transfer or check). Even if you use another payment method, I use PayPal to keep track of invoices. Billing is done prior to any advertising efforts.
Inline ads
Inline ads include one graphic (250px x 150px) and a link to an article. The inline ad appears directly inline in the post — sometimes a third of the way down, half way down, or at the bottom of the post (the position is somewhat random). Here’s an example:
Each ad block can contain a maximum of six ads. Within the ad block, the ads randomly rotate positions each time the page refreshes. There is no specific hierarchy to ads in the inline ads.
Your graphic format can be PNG, JPG, or SVG, but not an animated GIF. The graphic dimensions must be 250 x 150px pixels in size. You can switch the ad at any time by sending me a new graphic.
The ads are prefaced with a subheading that says “Sponsored ads” and the ad links have ref="nofollow". The ads appear on every page of my site — both the blog and API course.
The graphics are accompanied by a post that invites users to click the link. The post title should be both relevant and enticing for a tech comm audience. To track links, I shorten any URLs you provide to me with Rebrandly. This allows me to track link clicks as well.
The cost for an inline ad is $1,800 per year.
Product review posts
Product review posts are 800-1,000 word posts dedicated to highlighting and describing your product or service. These posts usually coincide with marketing efforts for product releases and updates.
To write this post, I usually have a 20-30 minute phone call with you to find out what message you want to share. Before publishing the post, I send it to you for review to make sure it fits your messaging. Each product review post is clearly identified as a sponsored post. Links have ref="nofollow".
Here are some recent product reviews I wrote previously:
- Archbee product review – first look at a new online platform for writing and managing documentation
- Using Oxygen XML with docs-as-code workflows
- Getting started tutorial: Using Stoplight Studio to create an OpenAPI specification document
- Paligo: Structured Authoring and Component Content Management made easy
- An in-depth look at MadCap Flare 2021’s New Markdown Import Feature
- Technical writing course Q&A – ‘Become a Technical Writer’, with Bobby Kennedy
- Q&A about Xeditor – online XML editor – with founder Matthias Kraus
- Connecting micro content with search analytics – notes on the first MadCap Flare and MadCap Central 2020 Release
- Redocly tutorial – authoring and publishing API docs with Redocly’s command-line tools
- How does Document360 handle challenges with API documentation?
- Stoplight — visual modeling tools for creating your OpenAPI spec
- Create an OpenAPI specification document using Stoplight Studio’s visual editor
- SwaggerHub introduction and tutorial
- XML Documentation for Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) — Integrating documentation and marketing content into a seamless whole
- MadCap Central – a first look at MadCap’s new cloud-based collaboration and publishing solution
- The Story of Paligo: A new browser-based CCMS with all the features you’d ever want
- Simplified Technical English and HyperSTE
- Evaluating Adobe FrameMaker’s responsive HTML5 output
- Adobe FrameMaker 2017 – time, tools, and the tech writer’s focus on content
- Xeditor, a CMS editor for XML content
Product review posts can focus on features in a new release. (Having something newsworthy to write about helps establish the article’s relevance.) But you don’t have to focus on news. You can also tell your product’s story, highlight a specific use case, or cover other information. These review posts aren’t merely marketing material converted into a blog post. I try to put a personal spin on posts to connect with my audience.
If possible, I’ll download and explore your product before writing about it. But I don’t have unlimited time to ramp up to an expert level on your product. I try to draw upon my industry insight and perspective to make insightful points. You’ll also probably supply me with the information and messages you want to communicate.
If desired, you can also write the post. If you write the post, I’ll then edit it (and review it with you prior to publishing). Alternatively, I can provide you with 5-10 questions for an FAQ style product review post. In this type of post, I pose questions to you, and you respond with answers.
Product review posts have good results with search results. If you search google for Xeditor, HyperSTE, Paligo, or Madcap Central, you’ll see that my product review posts appear on the first page of search results. This is because my site has a high page rank and influence.
If desired, I can also infuse the posts with SEO techniques when I write them. However, note that per Google’s Link Schemes policy, I’m required to add rel=nofollow to any links that appear to company and product sites when I’m being paid to write the post. This attribute reduces the Pagerank that flows from my site through the link, but it also avoids potential penalties or other spam-point assignments in the search algorithm.
The cost for a product review is $1,00 per post.
Inline text snippets
Inline text snippets are short snippets of text, about 2-4 sentences in length, that appear in random positions on every page of my API documentation course only. The API doc course is every page with the idratherbewriting.com/learnapidoc, which is only about 100+ pages, but these pages account for about 75% of all traffic.
You can define up to 10 text snippets with the variety of content and links you want. Here’s an example:
The text snippet’s text changes randomly with each page refresh. Additionally, the location of the snippet is random from page to page. (But the position on the page doesn’t change randomly, as this could interfere with the page layout.)
The text snippets give you more flexibility to get your messaging across. You’re not limited to a graphic or article title but can expand with more detail, and cycle in multiple messages to try to communicate your product. Text snippets don’t fall into the trap of banner blindness and fit right in line with the reader’s eye.
The text snippets are denoted with a Bootstrap alert-type formatting, with text that says “Sponsored message” prefacing the ad. Pages not included are contact, search, error, or other non-content heavy pages. A maximum of 3 inline snippets (from different advertisers) can appear on each page. Links are rel=nofollow.
The cost for inline text snippets to appear on the API doc site is $2,000 per year.
Newsletter
I send out about 3 newsletters a month to all my email subscribers (6,300 + readers). These newsletters contain links and excerpts to the latest posts (usually two articles per newsletter). Each blog post in the newsletter typically gets around 250 clicks, and the advertising graphic usually receives approximately 30 clicks or more. The size of the newsletter graphic is 600 x 70px graphic. Here’s an example:
The image format can be any standard image format (usually JPG or PNG), but not animated. Instead of a graphic, you can also replace this with a text snippet to promote a product or service. For example, you might have a release or other announcement that you want to make clear. In this case, the text would be several sentence in length and point to a URL.
The cost for advertising in the newsletter space is $1,200 per year.
Sidebar ads
Sidebar ads include a 250px x 150px graphic with an article link below the graphic. They appear in the left sidebar and randomly rotate positions each time the page refreshes — this helps refocus the reader’s attention on the ads. There is no specific hierarchy to ads in the sidebar.
Your ad can be any image type (JPG, PNG, or SVG) and color; the dimensions must be 250 x 150px pixels in size. GIFs or other animations aren’t allowed. You can switch the ad at any time by sending me a new graphic. As with other ads, the ad links have ref="nofollow".
The sidebar ads appear after any sidebar navigation links. For example, for the API doc course, the sidebar ads appear after the page navigation in the left. On the blog, if there’s a series, such as this series on trends, the sidebar ads appear below the page navigation.
The cost for sidebar ads is $1,000 per year.
Footer banner
The Footer Banner ad space (728 x 90px) appears below each post, right above the comments, in the single post view. This highly visible space is inline with the reader’s eye and provides a natural click-point after a reader finishes reading a post. The expanded size gives you more room to communicate a message and use other display grahpics.
Footers banners can be JPG, PNG, or SVG. Animated GIF is not allowed. Like the sidebar, the position of the horizontal inline ads rotate randomly with each page refresh. There’s a limit of 4 horizontal inline post ads that can appear below the post.
The cost for a footer banner is $1,500 per year.
Taking the next step
If you’d like to advertise on my site, contact me. We’ll finalize details about the ad spaces you want, and then I’ll send you an invoice via PayPal.