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General advertising and promotion - Multiple
streams of Traffic: PART II
There are a variety of ways that you can
advertise and promote
your site or products. In this, Part II of the
'mini-series'
on Multiple streams of traffic, I'd like to
take a look at a
couple of the more commonly known methods of
online promotion.
Some are much better than others, and some are
more suitable
than others. Our goal then is to look a little
more closely at
them to determine if they are suitable for
your needs. Read on
for more...
Banner ads
Using banner advertising and displaying banner
ads on your site
has changed a lot in the last 2 years. The
cost and value
(benefit) of banner advertising has dropped
significantly. I
won't talk about them too much other than to
say that their main
use is now principally as 'branding' tools. A
way to get your
name/product/site in the front of people's
faces quickly. For
the average person, it is nearly impossible to
get the kind of
reach required to really get much benefit from
banners. That
being said, if you can get good exposure in a
niche that fits
your market, go for it, it won't hurt.
On the other side of things, displaying banners
on your site as
a source of revenue is only worthwhile if you
are getting
thousands upon thousands of hits/month. The
average CPM is now
only about $2.00 (that means you earn $2.00
for every 1000
banners displayed!). Considering that when you
display a banner
on your site you are promoting a product or
site that is not
your own, you are giving visitors an exit that
does not generate
income for you. It isn't any wonder that the
top online
marketers (Cory Rudl,
Jimmy D.
Brown,
Ken Evoy
etc.) don't display ANY ads
(banners or anything) from any
other site.
I am not knocking banners here. They serve a
purpose. You just
need to be sure that they suit your purposes. I
have found
that the FastClick Ad
Network
provides very good service
for all your banner advertising needs.
FFA's and traffic swaps
Let me be very blunt about FFA's. They are a
waste of time for
anyone except the person who owns it. No
matter what the claims
may be, they will not produce traffic. Traffic
swaps and exit
exchanges have to potential to produce
reasonably large amounts
of traffic, however the problem is that for
the most part it is
untargeted. Most traffic swaps are based on a
system of credits,
where your site gets a visitor in exchange for
displaying the
traffic swap link on your site, or visiting a
member site
yourself. The real problem is that much of the
traffic is simply
other webmasters trying to boost their own
credits. They are not
interested in visiting your site except to get
the credit. I'm
sure you can see the problems with that. In a
way, you can think
of traffic swaps as an online equivalent of a
highway detour.
Lots of traffic gets re-directed your way, but
it doesn't really
want to be there. If you are interested in
learning more about
traffic swaps, you can go
here
to take a look at a popular one.
More recently, a slightly different breed of
traffic swap has
emerged. These focus on generating ezine
subscribers. The way
they work is basically the same as the a
normal traffic swap,
however because they are directed specifically
at getting
subscribers, they don't create junk traffic.
Every time you
display the pop-up containing the ezine
registration form, you
earn an impression for your subscription link
on another site.
When visitors see the pop-up with the links,
they choose to sign
up for your ezine. There are still very few of
them around, so
they are very effective and produce good
results. There are a
few services that provide opt-in services for
a fee (usually in
the range of $1.00/subscriber), but I prefer
free ;-). I have
had very good results with
this
service.
It is 100% free and
generates dozens of subscribers a week.
Ezine advertising
Ezine ads (both solo and classified ads) can be
very effective if
done right. They can also be utterly useless.
The key is to get
your ads in ezines that are very closely
related to your
product(s), and that don't run tons of ads.
There are literally
thousands of ezines out there that are
essentially advertising
rags. Their only purpose is to run ads for you
and every other
person willing to spend $15. Before you
advertise in any ezine,
get some information about the ezine. A decent
publisher will
know their subscriber base and be able to tell
you with reasonable
accuracy how responsive the subscribers are,
how many ads they run,
and if someone has recently run an ad like
yours (similar products).
If they can't do that, you might want to think
twice about
advertising with them. Realistically what you
want is an ezine with
a reasonably large subscriber base (1000 or
more), that is closely
related to your product, and only accepts
limited advertising
(e.g. 1 ad/issue). Stephan
Peirce's
book goes into great detail on how to find good
ezines and what to
look for and what to avoid - it costs less than
a solo ad in a decent
ezine, and will save you tons of money in
avoided mistakes.
A final comment:
Anyone who claims they can provide you with
100,000 (500,000,
whatever) guaranteed visitors is selling junk.
Think of it this
way, if it were so easy to get that many
targeted visitors (and
you only want targeted visitors), you can bet
companies (scammers)
wouldn't be selling them because they would be
raking in millions
in profits by directing those visitors to their
own products and
sites! Do a little math, 1% conversion (a very
low rate) from
100,000 visitors = 1,000 buying visitors. Sell
a $10 product and
you have $10,000. If such a profit is possible,
why the hell
is this kind of traffic sold for $50-$200?
Quite simply because
it is junk traffic, frequently created by
piggy backing on traffic
exchanges and FFA's.
In the next section of the series we will start
to look at some
of the less well known methods of traffic
generation, and how you
can put them to use to generate a more stable
and consistent base
of traffic for your own sites.
---------------------------
Eric Koshinsky: webmaster and guide at
Newbie-guides.com
We aim to provide useful tips and guidance for
those who
are new to personal online marketing. Learn
more about
programs, techniques, and software that can
help you
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Join our newsletter:
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About the
Author
Eric Koshinsky:
webmaster and guide at Newbie-guides.com
We aim to provide useful tips and guidance for
those who
are new to personal online marketing. Learn
more about
programs, techniques, and software that can
help you
reach your online marketing goals. Come on by
and
have a look.
http://www.newbie-guides.com/?aa
Join our newsletter:
news@newbie-guides.com
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