Once we open a Web site, all of us want to get traffic, lots of it. It doesn't matter how good your products or services are. No traffic means no sales.
Sound Good?
If I offered you 100,000 "guaranteed" unique visitors for $1,000, would that be too good to be true? Well, you can find these kinds of deals on the Net today with no sweat. But you should think about what is really guaranteed. They do send you visitors as they promised. If you buy 100,000, you'll get all of them. But, the trouble is, you won't make any sales. The money you pay for the guaranteed traffic will be a total loss! You are ticked off. Who wouldn't be?
See How You Get the Traffic
To avoid this trick, you have to see how a traffic-selling company directs surfers to your Web site. Review the complete details of how they send you surfers. Also ask to see how they are sending surfers to other companies. For example, what do you think will happen when a surfer visits or leaves their desired Web site, and your home page appears in a pop-up window? If you have been surfing the Web long enough, you know the fate of pop-ups, don't you? Being closed before completing download. But this is still considered one hit. Think carefully: Do you really want to pay for that kind of traffic?
Something They Don't Want to Tell You
They are selling you traffic, so they need to get it somewhere else. Most of the time they use their own Web site to gather the traffic. Sometimes, they buy traffic from other companies and re-sell it to you. Either way, make sure they don't spam. Even though they have their own Web site to gather the traffic, they may still use unsolicited e-mails to get more traffic. When your name is in an unsolicited e-mail, you will not only get a bad reputation, your business can be shut down.
Test Before Buying Whole Traffic
If their service is still attractive to you, test the quality of the traffic. You can ask to buy part of the traffic they offer before buying whole, and check the conversion rate. Buying part might depend on your negotiation skill, but if they don't let you buy a small portion of their traffic package, most likely their traffic won't be worth the money. Don't be eager to take their offers.
Unfortunately, there are people who will deceive you to take your money. Don't be nailed. Discovering that your marketing campaign is a total loss after the fact is too late. Be cautious; be wise.
Showing posts with label Generating More Traffic or Customers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Generating More Traffic or Customers. Show all posts
Friday, April 27, 2007
Hit Exchange Programs: Should You Participate?
Some Internet marketing gurus say Hit Exchange Programs are worth trying. But, many webmasters were disappointed by the result. Should you try it or not?
That's an Advertisement
Think of those programs as other sorts of advertisements. For normal advertisements, you use banners or simple texts. When your ads get viewers' attention, people will visit your site. With Hit Exchange Programs, your home page is the ad. When your home page grabs other participants' attention, they will view other pages of your site.
Who Sees Your Site
In order to get good result from advertisements, you have to present your ads to targeted audience. Now, think about who will see your home page when you participate in Hit Exchange Programs. People join the program because they have a Web site to show the world. Otherwise, there is no reason to join. So, all participants are webmasters; webmasters see your Web site. Therefore, if your site is webmaster-related, most likely, you will get not-too-bad results. If your site doesn't have anything to do with webmasters, the result will be awful. Let's say your Web site is all about gardening. You can tell that putting an ad on Entrepreneur magazine is wasting money. Participating in Hit Exchange Programs is almost the same as that. Presenting a gardening Web site to a bunch of webmasters is literally a waste of time.
Quick Stats
Followings are Click-though rates of Hit Exchange Programs I have tried. Hope you can see a rough idea of what you should expect from Hit Exchange Programs. Of course, you can try them and figure out stats by yourself. Those programs are free to join.
autohits.dk 0.17%
topsurfer.com 0.43%
trafficswarm.com 13.11%
At trafficswarm.com, the rate is significantly higher than others. That's because participants are given a list of links, then participants click one of the links they are interested in. (Here is what participants see .) This makes traffic more targeted.
As I said above, if your site isn't webmaster-related, these numbers will be much lower.
other available traffic exchange programs:
trafficattitude.com
AutoSurfHeaven.com
hitshaven.com
maxvisitors.comultimatevisitors.com
awesomevisitors.com
surfersrus.com
extremevisitors.com
autosurfing.us
That's an Advertisement
Think of those programs as other sorts of advertisements. For normal advertisements, you use banners or simple texts. When your ads get viewers' attention, people will visit your site. With Hit Exchange Programs, your home page is the ad. When your home page grabs other participants' attention, they will view other pages of your site.
Who Sees Your Site
In order to get good result from advertisements, you have to present your ads to targeted audience. Now, think about who will see your home page when you participate in Hit Exchange Programs. People join the program because they have a Web site to show the world. Otherwise, there is no reason to join. So, all participants are webmasters; webmasters see your Web site. Therefore, if your site is webmaster-related, most likely, you will get not-too-bad results. If your site doesn't have anything to do with webmasters, the result will be awful. Let's say your Web site is all about gardening. You can tell that putting an ad on Entrepreneur magazine is wasting money. Participating in Hit Exchange Programs is almost the same as that. Presenting a gardening Web site to a bunch of webmasters is literally a waste of time.
Quick Stats
Followings are Click-though rates of Hit Exchange Programs I have tried. Hope you can see a rough idea of what you should expect from Hit Exchange Programs. Of course, you can try them and figure out stats by yourself. Those programs are free to join.
autohits.dk 0.17%
topsurfer.com 0.43%
trafficswarm.com 13.11%
At trafficswarm.com, the rate is significantly higher than others. That's because participants are given a list of links, then participants click one of the links they are interested in. (Here is what participants see .) This makes traffic more targeted.
As I said above, if your site isn't webmaster-related, these numbers will be much lower.
other available traffic exchange programs:
trafficattitude.com
AutoSurfHeaven.com
hitshaven.com
maxvisitors.comultimatevisitors.com
awesomevisitors.com
surfersrus.com
extremevisitors.com
autosurfing.us
Initial Traffic and Supplemental Traffic
You can find many different traffic-generating techniques on the net, but before implementing any of them you need to understand the difference between Initial Traffic and Supplemental Traffic to maximize the results. (Targeted or not is a whole different story.)
Definitions
Because you haven't heard these words before (I coined them), I'll start with the definitions.
Initial Traffic:
The traffic which you can receive regardless of current volume of traffic to your site.
For example, whether your site receives 1,000,000 visitors a day or zero, if you place an ad on Yahoo!, you will receive a lot of traffic.
Example sources of Initial Traffic are:
advertisements and
search engine listings.
Supplemental Traffic:
The traffic which is generated by using traffic you already have. In other words, if no one visits your site, you can't generate Supplemental Traffic.
Let's say John has a website offering his own affiliate program. If his site receives 100 visitors a day, his affiliate program will exponentially increase the traffic. However, if no one visits his site, no one will sign up to his affiliate program. His affiliate program will not generate any traffic. To generate traffic by his affiliate program, he needs to get traffic from somewhere else, first.
Example sources of Supplemental Traffic are:
your own affiliate program and
viral marketing.
Rule of Thumb
If you are just starting your website, you have to focus on generating Initial Traffic. You can still profit from Initial Traffic without Supplemental Traffic. As you profit from Initial Traffic, you can invest the profit in generating Supplemental Traffic.
If you've been doing business online for a while, analyze your access log, and check which kind of traffic you are lacking. By doing so, you can invest your time and money in the right method at the right time.
Of course, you can work on generating both types of traffic at the same time if your budget permits. But, never forget that there won't be any Supplemental Traffic without Initial Traffic; no traffic means no money.
Definitions
Because you haven't heard these words before (I coined them), I'll start with the definitions.
Initial Traffic:
The traffic which you can receive regardless of current volume of traffic to your site.
For example, whether your site receives 1,000,000 visitors a day or zero, if you place an ad on Yahoo!, you will receive a lot of traffic.
Example sources of Initial Traffic are:
advertisements and
search engine listings.
Supplemental Traffic:
The traffic which is generated by using traffic you already have. In other words, if no one visits your site, you can't generate Supplemental Traffic.
Let's say John has a website offering his own affiliate program. If his site receives 100 visitors a day, his affiliate program will exponentially increase the traffic. However, if no one visits his site, no one will sign up to his affiliate program. His affiliate program will not generate any traffic. To generate traffic by his affiliate program, he needs to get traffic from somewhere else, first.
Example sources of Supplemental Traffic are:
your own affiliate program and
viral marketing.
Rule of Thumb
If you are just starting your website, you have to focus on generating Initial Traffic. You can still profit from Initial Traffic without Supplemental Traffic. As you profit from Initial Traffic, you can invest the profit in generating Supplemental Traffic.
If you've been doing business online for a while, analyze your access log, and check which kind of traffic you are lacking. By doing so, you can invest your time and money in the right method at the right time.
Of course, you can work on generating both types of traffic at the same time if your budget permits. But, never forget that there won't be any Supplemental Traffic without Initial Traffic; no traffic means no money.
Losers and Winners
Not every business succeeds. We all know that, but what makes the difference between the winners and the losers?
The Loser
Marketing mistakes are the most common reason of all that businesses fail. When business owners encounter financial hard times, they cut their marketing budget. That's a mistake. If they cut their marketing budget, they'll obviously get fewer customers and visitors. Fewer visitors mean less in sales. So, their financial situation gets even worse. As their budget gets ever tighter, they cut even more of their marketing budget. If they keep repeating this death circle, they will eventually not have enough money to run the business at all. (An even bigger mistake than cutting the marketing budget - is no marketing budget at all. Some webmasters especially seem to think that if they build a website the world will make its way to their door. It doesn't and their online business efforts are on a death cycle before they get a fair chance of starting.)
The Winner
On the other hand, companies that do overcome financial hardships and succeed tend to cut other expenses, such as payroll, not their marketing budget. That's why you continue to see their ads on TV and everywhere else, even after they announce the layoff of large numbers of employees.
The Solution
With a very tight budget, you obviously cannot increase your marketing budget. The solution, however, is to work on improving the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns that you do have. If the ads you run pull better results, you will get more customers without spending extra money. With more customers, you will make more money. Then, you can spend the extra money on marketing to get more customers (and more money). Now, you can spend even more money on marketing to get even more customers. In a nutshell, this is the cycle of success in growing your business.
If you test every marketing campaign, you will know (or you already know) what works and what doesn't. Knowing this, you should be able to make better ads by yourself. If you cannot, then you obviously need to hire a good marketing firm. Good ones are expensive, but if you don't do what you have to do to effectively market your business, you won't be in business for very long.
The Loser
Marketing mistakes are the most common reason of all that businesses fail. When business owners encounter financial hard times, they cut their marketing budget. That's a mistake. If they cut their marketing budget, they'll obviously get fewer customers and visitors. Fewer visitors mean less in sales. So, their financial situation gets even worse. As their budget gets ever tighter, they cut even more of their marketing budget. If they keep repeating this death circle, they will eventually not have enough money to run the business at all. (An even bigger mistake than cutting the marketing budget - is no marketing budget at all. Some webmasters especially seem to think that if they build a website the world will make its way to their door. It doesn't and their online business efforts are on a death cycle before they get a fair chance of starting.)
The Winner
On the other hand, companies that do overcome financial hardships and succeed tend to cut other expenses, such as payroll, not their marketing budget. That's why you continue to see their ads on TV and everywhere else, even after they announce the layoff of large numbers of employees.
The Solution
With a very tight budget, you obviously cannot increase your marketing budget. The solution, however, is to work on improving the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns that you do have. If the ads you run pull better results, you will get more customers without spending extra money. With more customers, you will make more money. Then, you can spend the extra money on marketing to get more customers (and more money). Now, you can spend even more money on marketing to get even more customers. In a nutshell, this is the cycle of success in growing your business.
If you test every marketing campaign, you will know (or you already know) what works and what doesn't. Knowing this, you should be able to make better ads by yourself. If you cannot, then you obviously need to hire a good marketing firm. Good ones are expensive, but if you don't do what you have to do to effectively market your business, you won't be in business for very long.
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