Advertisements, Lists and Traffic Exchanges

I love this book. Other people hate it. He makes a huge promise and people think he broke it. In my humble opinion however, I think it's one of the best primers on internet advertising there is. If you look at the sources of advertising that he explains, at his own campaign for promotion of this book and his numerous ideas about how to promote something, then it's well worth the money. How not to pay google for pay per click advertising it isn't - but how to make money to pay them it is.  Here's How to Get All Your Google AdWords Pay-Per-Clicks FREE!

When you first start looking into advertising you don't know much about it and you might try google adwords or perhaps even a newspaper classified and then you're a bit unsure about where to go next. Until you start to explore advertising opportunities you are a bit empty headed about it.There are always two ways to get what you want. You can pay for it outright or you can barter for it. So far you've opted to pay but there are a number of ways to barter your time for advertising credits.

A very large number . So because you don't have a million dollar budget, you read a book on traffic with lists of ideas and sites that you can join to advertise your site. Suddenly there are so many ways to advertise that it's difficult to know where to start. The brain starts to freeze just thinking about it.

Between the empty head and the frozen brain there is a middle ground. As for everything else just do one single step at a time. Advertising will be an ongoing part of your business. Try not to think of it as sucker grabbing or money grubbing, imagine it simply as an invitation to your domain. Flashing neon and overfriendly hawksters will cajole people into a strip joint but the same approach is an unsuitable introduction to a doctor's surgery.

Try to give your ads some appropriate class and attract people's attention with the glitter of promise or a flash of humour rather than just flashing for the sake of it. There's nothing wrong with good taste especially if your site is also of high quality. Look at the ads on the side there. Which do you prefer, the calm and stable green google ads or the flashing red and blue list ads? There's nothing wrong with flash to attract attention as such; but it can make the text difficult to read, just as it's difficult to think in a venue with sweeping lights and a loud beat. Maybe that is what the ad designer wanted, but you need to think and decide what is more appropriate for you.

Joining one new advertising venture, each day for a week, is a way to begin using some of the advertising opportunities available. If you want to continue following opportunities do the same the next week and the week after. Add each new site you encounter that shows promise to a list and keep the system going, just one a day, until you've achieved some success.

Prepare yourself  by compiling a group of ads for your site or sites. Banner ads for banner exchanges, text ads for signatures and solo ezine ads, pay per click text ads, square picture ads for blogs, write a few articles if possible and small descriptive scripts for directories. Format the pictures or links for easy entry into the varous sites you will visit. Keep them short and make it attractive and memorable.

Plan out a long term campaign allowing yourself 5 hours each week to complete it. Write down what you want to achieve, whether it's directory listings, forum posts, article submissions, free advertising, traffic exchanges, list building or pay per click and then lock in one hour of each week day to just concentrate on promoting your website.

Start by signing up to one free advertising program a day and confirming and following the steps they provide until you have placed your ads with it or know what you have to do so. Next day start with a second site and so on until you have signed up with four sites. On the fifth day, revisit the four sites and tidy up the loose ends and complete any projects you have started.

Next week repeat the process spending the same hour of each day getting your ads out. You'll find there are sites with some excellent training material on them, highlight them and move them to the top of the list and follow through on their suggestions. Keep records of your sign ups and start to prioritise them. Check your stats and find out who is sending you traffic and spend less time on, or drop, the sites that aren't sending you any. Your time is just as valuable as the money you spend.

You will be presented with opportunities to pay for better exposure. Resist all but one for each type of advertising and stick with the free membership with the others until you have had time to assess the site. You may be able to retrieve the one time offer by signing up again with a different email, when and if you think it will work really well for you. Sign up and pay for better service with those sites that answer an email, have good training material, or those you can see are having a beneficial effect on your traffic and doing the job of converting sales for you.

Many respected marketers will offer advice about what works and what doesn't. Take advantage, when you start, of their experience but recognise that they can only speak about what worked for them. When you start to create your own roadmap, take the roads that works for you. There are too many variables - your product type, the niche's audience, the quality of your ads and the quality of the ads services - only you can decide, with testing and tracking, what works for you.

This could easily be a full time job for someone but when you have a small business, you already wear so many hats that one more will not matter. Admit to yourself, that five hours a week doing this, every week, is five hours better than none. If traffic is what you need then maybe you can employ someone, when you can pay them, to continue this process. To pay them you need sales, to get sales you need traffic. You will reap the results as your site starts to get more traffic and this will then start to grow in a natural way.

Advertising is an ongoing part of your business. Make it an ongoing part of your daily schedule.