Getting The Word Out - Get Articles by David Barrett |  |
> Get Articles > Publicity > Getting The Word Out Getting The Word Out Download as PDFDavid Barrett daveemoneymonthly.com eMoney Monthly http://emoneymonthly.com You've finally done it! You've read the how-to manuals, taken your first steps on the way to financial independence and set yourself up with an Internet business. You have your product, started an account to accept credit cards, registered your domain name, and set up your website. So why aren't web surfers flocking to your site to buy your product? As with any business, the key to success is advertising. You may have the best product anywhere, but if no one knows about it, you'll never be able to get it off the ground. This is especially true on the Internet. With a "brick & mortar" business, you may get by if you have a great location that gets a lot of foot traffic regardless of how much you advertise. On the internet, however, if you don't advertise you won't get any hits at all. The good news is, there are many different ways to get the word out about your site, some for free. The bad news is not all of them work. The most popular form of advertising on the Internet is through the use of banner exchanges. This kind of advertising may have been effective in the past, but today it is perhaps the least effective way to advertise. The biggest downside of banners, aside from the fact that they have very low click-through rates, is that many of the exchange programs force you to place a reciprocal banner on your site. This is a bad idea for two reasons. First, it cheapens the look of your site, and second, you have no control over what your customer sees. Besides, you should never give your customers an opportunity to click away from your site before they've made a purchase. Another popular form of free advertising is placing classified ads on FFA (Free For All) pages and Safelists. Don't be fooled, these methods of advertising are little more than ineffective spam generators. Most people who sign up for these pages don't even use their regular email addresses. They create dummy accounts for the sole purpose of receiving the spam that inevitably floods their email box as a result of signing up for these lists. The truth is, almost no one actually reads the posts to these lists. The time it takes to submit to them could be spent much more productively. If you have a little money to spend on advertising, you will get better results much faster. Just be careful where you spend your advertising dollars. Buying direct hits to your website may sound like a good option, and it will definitely get you traffic, but it's not targeted and will result in few, if any, sales. Some people try using email lists purchased from a list broker. Unless you're sure the list you're mailing to is 100% opt-in, don't take the risk. Make no mistake about it, this is spamming and it can get you into big trouble. So what does work? Ezines. Ezine advertising is generally accepted as the best way to advertise on the Internet. Right now there are thousands of ezines that will accept outside advertising, many of them for free. While a vast majority of ezines only have a small subscriber list, if you advertise in enough of them it is possible to get your ads out to thousands, if not millions of people. You can also take out solo ads with some of the larger Ezines. This has the advantage of direct mail, but without the spamming. Because the subscribers have opted-in to the list, they're much more receptive to your ad. Remember to keep a log of which ads you placed in which ezines, so you can track the effectiveness of your ads. Getting the word out about your product or website isn't difficult when you know where to advertise effectively. Find some ezines related to what you're selling and place some ads. With the right ad, your website will get all the traffic you could want. Copyright (c) 2002 eMoney Enterprises ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dave Barrett is editor of the Internet marketing ezine eMoney Monthly. Subscribe now for free access to all the great resources that eMoney Monthly has to offer! mailto:subscribeemoneymonthly.com Visit our website at http://eMoneyMonthly.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How useful did you find this article? This article can be downloaded freely from http://www.get-articles.com and used on your website or in your ezine so long as the author is credited and their resource box left intact. You should not change any links in the article, and where the article is used on a website it's links should be clickable. Please see our terms and conditions page for more information: http://www.get-articles.com/authors-publishers-terms.php |
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May 28, 2012 © www.Get-Articles.com. All Rights Reserved.