USA Today Gives Bloggers Free Ads | How to Get Yours

Want to advertise, but don’t have an ad budget? Or, you do have an ad budget, but want a free month’s worth of testing?

USA TODAY wants your blog in their Blogger & Podcaster Guide.

Here’s what your ad will look like. This screen shot is from the business page. Right now, I’m at number one – don’t know how that happened or how long it will last. And, I also don’t know blogs get rated. I do know that my friend, Christina Hills – The Shopping Cart Queen comes in at number three. I’m in good company.

When I got in on this offer in November, I replied to an email suggesting that only 50 free spots were open. Really, nothing happened – at all – until yesterday when I got an email letting me know that major revisions happened between then and now. I’ll say – wow!

You can change your ad at any time, which appeals to the edgy upgraders out there. Although I don’t yet have a blog logo – it’s set to be conceived and born sometime next month – I came up with this quickly dashed off logo using Word and Snag-it to cut out the image.

Looking rather lame, especially since I copied the wrong image [it was supposed to be a purply heather background with white text], I decided to use my file photo.

Comparing my ad to the others, you’ll see it’s the only one [for now] with a call to action:

“Create business for your business. Sharpen your competitive edge. Feed into Wired PR Works, your always-on marketing/PR resource center. Published for you by Barbara Rozgonyi, a communications visionary and founder of CoryWest Media, LLC. Blog mentioned in “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” by David Meerman Scott. Special offer: free $97 Power PR Secrets Guide at www.PowerPRSecrets.com. Need a new”

Have to snip of the last three words, but you can see it’s stuffed with keywords and a bio carefully framed into reader benefits.

Here’s how to get your free 30 day ad up and running.

1. Go to http://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/usatoday
2. Select “New User” and go through 6 Step registration process
3. In Step 2 be sure to select Option #4 and enter `BP‘ in Coupon Code box.

After you upload your ad, check back here and leave a link.