Advertising and Promotion on The Zeiger Family Homestead Website and Blog

We originally intended to post photos and blog so that family and friends can see what we’re up to at their convenience, without the need to send endless emails to describe the notable events of our life. That has grown incredibly as our situation has captured the imaginations of people throughout the world. More and more people are “armchair homesteading” through us. We see significant levels of daily visits, both new and repeat viewers. Our bounce rate is low, and time spent on the site fairly high. While far from viral, our site offers solid opportunities for advertisers to reach a dedicated audience interested in off-the-grid homesteading, alternative power systems, subsistence hunting, fishing, foraging, and gardening, home boat building and outdoor living.

Advertising

Our advertising policy is very simple: Keep it real. Google Adsense comprises our primary advertising, more or less targeted to those seeking out our subject matter on line. Beyond that, we are willing to consider individual advertising.

To be considered, the product must either relate to our content, or be judged by us to be of interest to a majority of our regular visitors. We are very aware of the tacit endorsement a product’s advertising presence represents.

The Web page is fairly static; blog posts are rarely, if ever, removed. For this reason, we have never accepted a one time fee for advertisement placement. We’re not saying there isn’t a one time fee big enough to tempt us, but we have yet to see it!

We reserve the right to refuse any ad for any reason. Earning an income must be balanced against maintaining integrity, so generally, we are reluctant to include ads on our pages; the evaluation process is strict. We turn away more advertisers than we accept.

Therefore, any advertisements that we do accept enjoy low competition and exclusive placement. Because the “real estate” is so scarce, our rates tend to be higher than many small, private blogs. Contact us for further information.

NOTE: To ensure that we stay within the good graces of our main advertising provider, Google Adsense, all paid text links must include a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag as stipulated in Google Adsense’s General Guidelines. No exceptions. You need not add this code to your HTML. We’ll add it for you if we add your link to any of our pages. Display ads should not appear too similar to Google Adsense ads.

Product and Book Reviews

Our unique lifestyle provides a tough testing ground for outdoor, off-the-grid, and survival clothing, gear, and devices. We often review or critique in the blog the things we use in our daily life. We provide honest assessment, praising the worthy, condemning the inadequate. Our readers know this and trust our opinions. To honor that trust, we insist on honesty.

We have tested clothing for a military contractor. To ensure the integrity of our reviews, the contractor did not advertise with us, and did not ask us to mention the gear on our blog. We mentioned it from time to time without an endorsement, and the clothing often appears in family photos. This is a good model for how we work.

Books for review should be a full copy, we will not review excerpts. We are reluctant to return reviewed items, as we need to pack it into the homestead and back out, but we will do so if arranged beforehand, and postage is paid by the product sender. We’ll invest the time and effort, but no funds.

Extras for giveaways to our readers are always welcome.

Books or items sent to us for review will be identified in the blog as such. We cannot guarantee a positive review, but, should a book or product fail to impress us, we may not review it at all, rather than condemn it on line.

Also, please understand that we’re a working homestead, with an active blog. Our daily work, personal reading lists, weather conditions, and a plethora of blog topics may delay review posts.

Contact us for review requests and mailing address.

Guest Posts

We don’t accept them. Find out more about this.

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