Getting The Word Out

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.

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