July 1, 2002– Newsletter #187

Goodies to Go ™
July 1, 2002–Newsletter #187

This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
 

Goodies Thoughts – Promoting Your Website

Recently, we’ve been
taking some time to discuss search engines and how they work. We also talked
about several ways to get your site noticed and ranked by search engines. Well,
this week I thought we might discuss some other ways to build traffic to your
website.

For the most part, what
we will talk about in this issue will only be useful in your more commercial
applications of web development. If you are only interested in building a
personal web site then focusing on the search engine optimization that we talked
about in the last issue will probably be enough.

If, however, you want to
drive folks to your web site to sell a product, service or yourself then here
are a few tips on different types of advertising:

Banner Ads – Ahhh,
yes, the old banner ad. Banner ads are probably the most common and some would
say the least effective form of advertising on the web. Recent surveys show that
the general web surfing community has pretty much become numb to banner ads on
the web. So, does that mean that you shouldn’t use banner, button and other
similar ads to promote your website?

No, of course not. Even
though banner advertising is not as effective as it once was, banner ads will
still draw traffic to your site. Here are some things to consider, though,
before launching your banner ad campaign:

• Take a careful look at
  the sites you are considering advertising with and get some recent page view
  statistics.

• Determine whether your
  ad is one of only a few or many. The fewer the ads on the site, the more
  likely you are to get a banner ad click.

• Will your ad have a
  permanent location or will it be randomly rotated with other ads. If it is
  randomly rotated with other ads, be sure to find out how many other ads and
  whether that rotation is evenly weighted or not. You can use this information
  in cooperation with the web statistics to better determine how many times your
  ad will be seen.

• Consider the different
  types of contracts. Some sites will sell you advertising on a very simple
  monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Other sites will sell based on the number
  of impressions. Selling by impressions means your ad will be appear x number
  of times. Lastly, some sites will charge you little or no upfront fees for
  advertising but will bill you for each time someone clicks on your ad. Once
  you know the type of contract you can better determine which is the most
  cost-effective for you.

Keep in mind that even
the most successful of banner ads will only be clicked less than 4% of the time.
Be sure to always low-ball your estimate when trying an advertising campaign for
the first time. Consider the number of clicks that you will get at 1% or less to
start with. Once your campaign has begun, check your statistics often to get a
feel for how much traffic your ads are really generating and don’t be afraid to
change the ads themselves if your results are not what you expected. Also, keep
in mind that long running ad campaigns tend to peak early and then taper off
over time. In order to lessen the that effect, change your ads frequently.

Pop-up and Pop-under
Ads – I’m sure you have seen these types of ads everywhere you go on the
web. While they do get people’s attention and give you more space to advertise
in, I personally find them annoying. Not to mention, most of my friends and
colleagues find them annoying as well. I think it’s because it requires a user
intervention to actually close the ad unlike banner ads which simply come and go
with each page. I’m not sure that necessarily makes us the norm, but it does
tell me that a significant number of people are annoyed by them. If you are
considering pop-up or pop-under ads on other sites be prepared to pay more for
them. They are the newest and hottest thing right now. Personally, I always try
to talk my clients out of using these type of ads and would never purchase one
myself, but that’s just me. You may find that the results you get from these
type of ads worth the cost.

Newsletter Ads –
This particular form of advertising is often overlooked. Depending on the
product or service that you provide, this may be a very effective form of
advertising for you. There are a few very key benefits to newsletter
advertising:

• Your audience is much
  more targeted. Instead of hodgepodge of different people wandering through a
  given website, you now have a group of people that have voluntarily opted to
  subscribe to their special interest. This gives you the opportunity to
  advertise products and services that you know are of interest to the
  subscriber base.

• Often these ads are
  sold on an issue by issue basis. This allows you to get short term boosts to
  your site traffic. These short term boosts are very useful for promoting
  specials and short-term discounts.

When advertising in
newsletters often the only information that you get is the total subscriber
base. That number may not actually be a true reflection of how many people
actually take the time to read each issue of the newsletter. As with banner
advertising, you should keep a very close eye on the results of your
advertising. Unlike banner ads, though, repetitive advertising over a long
period will often get you better results, especially if you offer regular
specials as a part of the advertisement. Eventually, readers will begin to read
your advertisement each issue just to see what you have on sale. This technique
can also be applied to banner ads.

Link Exchanges –
This is probably your most cost-effective means of advertising. There are
several different ways that you can approach this:

• Swapping links or ads
  with other sites. This is usually a fair exchange of links with other
  websites. "I’ll put a link to you on my site if you put a link to me on your
  site" kind of thing. If you are considering exchanging links with another site
  be sure to compare their traffic with yours. If you generate much more traffic
  through your site that they do theirs, consider alternatives to make the
  exchange more fair. For example, if your traffic is much higher than theirs
  you may want to propose that they place one of your banner ads on their site
  while you place a simple text link on yours.

• Using link exchange
  services. These can be very useful services. They basically act as a middle
  man. They offer people that want to advertise and people that are looking to
  put advertising on their sites a forum for getting together. Business who wish
  to advertise will usually pay on a commission or click-through basis with the
  exchange service taking a cut. (A click-through occurs each time someone
  clicks on a banner ad or text ad) The sites that display that advertising will
  then be paid based on the sales commission percentage or click-throughs. If
  you are interested in using a link exchange service, there are several out
  there. Here’s a couple to get you started:
  http://www.linkshare.com
  and http://www.cj.com.

• Of course the best
  advertising is getting people to link to your site without soliciting them or
  doing an exchange at all. That, of course, is the real trick. Making your site
  so wonderful and appealing that everyone will want to link to it is the goal
  of every web designer and developer.

E-mail (SPAM) –
If you have read any of my other newsletters, you know how I feel about SPAM.
Keep in mind SPAM is a far cry from a legitimate opt-in e-mail list. If you are
considering buying an email list and SPAMming consider these very important
issues:

• Purchased e-mail lists
  are often filled with a very high percentage of undeliverables or dead
  accounts.

• They are obviously
  sold to many other individuals and business, which means you will be competing
  with dozens of other businesses for inbox space.

• Many people are very
  annoyed by SPAM and will often avoid a site like the plague if they have
  received SPAM from it.

• If you are on a hosted
  server, your host may very much frown on the sending of SPAM and shut you down
  if you violate their anti-SPAMming rules.

• SPAMming can get you
  black-listed from many e-mail servers which can cause you problems in the
  future when you send out non-SPAM e-mails.

E-mailing to a
legitimate opt-in list is an altogether different matter. If you offer your own
newsletter or other regular publication, you may be already building a
legitimate e-mail list for yourself. It is perfectly acceptable and recommended
to take advantage of any e-mail list that you accumulate as long as the person
specifically chooses to receive periodic product or service announcements. You
can achieve this by either giving the subscriber the option of receiving such
advertisements or making them aware that they may receive advertisements from
time to time if they choose to subscribe.

You also may find it
advantageous to purchase a "third-party" e-mail advertisement from another
website. This usually consists of a short text e-mail advertising your product
and is sent to a list of subscribers that have opted to receive information from
"select third-party vendors". That phrase is usually a catch-all for "any vendor
that wants to rent our list". While this type of advertising is considered by
many to be in that "gray" area, keep in mind the subscriber did opt to receive
the advertisements. Also keep in mind that you may have the same difficulties in
competing for space in the inbox that you have with SPAM.

Hopefully, this gives
you some ideas and tips on how to go beyond the search engine and increase your
site traffic. Just remember to do a little research before you commit to
anything and you’ll find yourself getting your money’s worth in traffic.