Sidebar Advertising
BoulderCity.com offers affordable advertising opportunities for local businesses to reach our audience in several ways:
- By having your ad appear in rotation throughout the right-hand sidebar that appears on every page of our website
- By sharing deals or news about your business with our audience in your own monthly Business News post, if desired
- By utilizing your ever-popular Job Board for employment opportunities you would like to announce
Here is some information that will probably answer almost every question you would want to ask us about how it all works…
Most importantly, how much does advertising cost?
Simple. The current cost to advertise on our site is $30/month.
What do I need to know about Sidebar Ads?
As you look at our website, you’ll see that there are 10 or more “ad slots” going down the right-hand side of the page.
Each of those slots contains individual ads (a single piece of ad artwork for each business) and as our visitors pull up different pages of the site, the ads are shuffled to display a new one with each new page request. Think of the ads as a deck of cards and with each new page view, a new card is shuffled to the top for display.
The ads don’t rotate live in front of site visitors (because moving ads are simply annoying) … the next ad in the stack is shown when a new page is displayed.
How many times is a sidebar ad displayed?
Our website traffic varies each month, but BoulderCity.com averaged 19,925 page views per month in 2021. Each sidebar ad is tracked to show it’s individual views, and they average at least 6,000 – 8,000 views per month. We provide an analytics report to our advertisers every four months to update them on the number of displays their sidebar ad(s) received for their $30/month investment.
How do I get more views than that?
Easy … you just buy more than a single ad, making your advertising fee $60/month for 2 of the ads in the slot, $90/month for 3 ads, etc.
Whose ad is at the top of the page vs. the bottom?
We rotate our ad slots vertically at the start of each week, meaning that each ad slot moves down by one position and the bottom ad moves to the top. This ensures that no ads are always at the top or always at the bottom of the sidebar … everyone cycles through evenly.
Will you make my ad artwork?
Absolutely … the creation of your ad’s initial artwork ad is included at no additional cost.
How often can I have you update my artwork?
Most ads designs remain relatively constant, although we are happy to redesign ads or update information as requested for the cost of our design time. Just let us know what you’d like and we’ll be able to give you an estimate.
Can you explain the monthly post in Business News?
As an advertiser, we’ll reach out to you once a month to find out if there is any information you would like us to post on our site for you in your very own ‘Business News’ post.
Based on your post content and what we have from other advertisers (i.e. if something is date-related), we’ll determine when we can post your news and do our best to accommodate everyone. If you know about something earlier than we reach out to you, it’s best to let us know in advance to we can reserve a great post date for you, which we’re happy to do.
We update the Business News section with these posts throughout the week and then collectively promote the featured businesses in a Facebook post once per week to drive our fans to the page containing the posts in the Business News category. This is your way to reach our 10,500+ Facebook fans each month AND your post appears both on the Business News page AND in the right-hand sidebar (under the ads) if you are one of the most recent posts.
Can I post jobs on the Boulder City Social Job Board?
You sure can! Advertisers are permitted to submit up to 15 job openings per year to the Job Board for free (there is currently a $20 per job posting charge for non-partners).
Is there a minimum term to advertise?
To cover the time involved in creating your ad and getting it programmed into the website, there is an initial 6-month minimum term. We charge for the first 6 months in full and then offer renewal periods of quarterly, bi-annually or annually, whichever you prefer.
How does billing work?
All sidebar ads are set up on a recurring credit card billing system so we charge you for the first 6-months when your ad goes live. Then, your renewals are automatically charged to your Visa, MasterCard or American Express for the renewal period you’ve selected on the ad agreement.
Can I cancel at any time?
After your first 6 months…sure! We do require notice of at least 5 days before the next auto-billing so we have time to cancel the recurrence with the credit card company. If you aren’t able to provide 5 days of notice, we’re still happy to provide a refund, but must deduct $25 to cover the Charge Back Fee levied by our credit card processing company.
Can I pay by check instead of credit card?
Sure thing…but we only invoice annually. We will need written approval by email for the invoice prior to beginning creation of the ad if you are a new account. Then once you are on an annual invoice schedule we will send out a reminder invoice about 10 days prior to the renewal and again want to have your written confirmation of the continuance of your sidebar ad with us.
Do you provide any ad exclusivity?
Yes and no … we don’t offer industry exclusivity, but we do provide ‘brand exclusivity’. For instance, we’ll include sidebar ads from multiple insurance companies, but only one from within the State Farm brand.
Will my ad link to my website?
It sure will! And because BoulderCity.com ranks really high on the search engines, it ends up being good for an SEO perspective for those websites who battle for Google ranking.
I’m IN! What should I do now?
Easy! Just reach out and let us know you’d like to advertise on Boulder City Social and more specifically, which features are of particular interest. Then we’ll be able to reply back with the easiest way to get you there … whether it’s easy email exchanges of artwork designs and the credit card authorization form or if we should pop in for a visit and to take photos, etc.!
Ready? Great! You can get things underway (or you can ask us any questions, of course) by reaching out through our contact form by clicking the button below!