Advertise on the West Wind Weblog

If you would like to advertise on the weblog.west-wind.com Web site we offer several ad formats you can use to reach your audience. The site includes over 1,250 posts all of which include the ad content discussed in this document.

This article describes available advertising formats, pricing, submission instructions and a discussion on the types of ads we accept on this site.

Ad Types and Pricing
Ad Formats
Ad Content Guidelines
Placing an Ad Order

Ad Formats and Pricing

Ad Format	Description	Pricing
Sponsor Banner	Brown bar underneath the title showing a small strip of text. Banner is embedded text which can include a small line level product or company icon. Available in shared and exclusive modes. Shared mode rotates your with up to two other ads in the same slot. Exclusive mode runs only your banner and advertises as ad-free experience sponsored by Your Company/Product with no other ads run on site.	Shared $350 Exclusive $500
Inline Display Ad	In-article ads are displayed in the content of most weblog posts. Uses a plain `png`, `animated gif` or `apng` image you provide, and should be sized at a max height to width ratio of `1000x225`. You can use up to double the resolution as long as the ratio stays at or below this height to width ratio. You provide us with the image plus a target URL that will be accessed when clicked as a simple image link. We can optionally host your image on our server to minimize ad blocking. Inline ads can be run exclusive or in shared mode. Exclusive rotates only your ad for inline ads. Shared mode rotates randomly between your ad and one other advertiser for inline ads.	Shared $400 Exclusive $700
Run all Ads	Combines Sponsor Banner and Inline Ads. Lets you use two separate inline ads with the second ad used on longer posts and articles.	$1000
Server Hosted Images	If you want us to host your ad image(s) we can serve your images from this site to further improve SEO link validation and minimize ad blocking.	$75

Prices listed are for monthly rates. Discounts for 6 and 12 month runs are available.

All ads and sponsor banners are embedded as 'direct' links from the banner to your site. Images are server rendered and present at initial page load. They provide maximum SEO for back links, as well as minimizing ad blocking due to direct links to image and link without intermediaries to ad servers or other third party intermediaries. Images can optionally be hosted on our server to minimize ad blocker exclusions as images then are served locally from the source site. This adds significant value to your ad visibility!

Ad Formats

There are two different 'ad' formats available with different specifications:

The Sponsor Banner is a thin banner that runs immediately under the blog title. It is displayed on every page of the Weblog.

What you need to provide

The sponsor banner should be a single line of text for your product or company advertisement as well as an optional longer paragraph that is displayed as a tooltip popover when hovering over the banner. On smaller screens this line may break into two lines. You can optionally (but recommended) provide a square sized icon that can prefix your text icon should be 48 pixels square and will be sized down to approximately 20px. You need to also provide a valid target URL to which we should link when you click on the banner.

Requirements Summary

Single Line of Text
Tooltip popup text can be longer and provide more info
48 pixel square PNG image with transparency (if not square)
A URL to link to on your site

Because ads are directly linked, we do not track or provide ad performance information. If you need to track ads you can provide your own images and response links and capture log information on the image source and target urls.

We can optionally provide tracking, but it will lessen the effectiveness of ads as they will no longer provide direct back links to your site.

Inline Image Display Ad Banners

Inline Ad banners are displayed as plain images inline of Weblog posts. Ads need to be provided for display at a ratio up to 1000x225px height at full site width or multiple's thereof (ie. 2000x450px). We'll accept thinner banners but 1000px is the minimum width which will be scaled down to fit content. Double resolution is recommended for max resolution on high DPI devices.

Here's the same ad on Mobile:

Sample display ad image size is 2000x450px.

The banner is centered in the content with up to two ads per post displayed depending on length of the post. In shared mode ads are rotated between two advertisers. In exclusive mode you can provide two separate banner images that are rotated and can potentially be both displayed in the same post.

Requirements Summary

1000x225(or thinner) PNG/GIF/APNG image (or double resolution)
Provide the image either as an image link on your server,
or provide us with the image file to host for you from our server
A target URL on your site to link on ad clicks

Ad Content Guidelines

This site is a software development site so preferably we would like to see advertising content that is of interest to software developers, dev-ops professionals and general computer users.

We are looking for the following content for ads:

.NET related tools, components, services
General Web Development tools
DevOps, SAAS Solutions and services
General Software development tools and services
Business Software Solutions
Computer Hardware
Consumer or Business Electronics
Business Services
Office Optimization

We don't allow the following content for ads:

Pornographic sites/services
Alcohol, drugs, tobacco or Cannabis
Pharmaceutical
Gossip, Entertainment
Domain parking, and link or ad farm sites

Ad Links provided must be relevant to the ad image or message being displayed.

Subject to Approval

Regardless of these restrictions, all ads are subject to approval and we reserve the right to reject any ad if it doesn't fit with the content provided on this Web site.

Placing an Ad Order

Ads run month to month, and run from the first of the month until the last of the month. Ad runs are payable prior to start of ad inclusion. Payments can be made by credit card or PayPal, through our online store. Half months are available on to run from the 15th to the end of the month pending availability. Please check with us for availability.

Payment must be made in advance of the agreed upon period for ads to run.

If you would like to place an order please contact adsales@west-wind.com along with your dates for running the ad, along with any of the materials required for the ad or sponsor ship you want to run ads for.