There are a ton of companies online that offer guaranteed visitors for a fee, but what's the quality of these site-seers?
Many moons ago, I decided to try the idea of purchasing website traffic in the hopes that it would lead to more people viewing my site. This proved to be a waste of time and money. Although I knew that sign-ups, customers, etc. weren't guaranteed, and I wasn't really expecting any, I thought maybe the extra traffic would prove worthwhile for increasing the visibility of my site(s).
Let me tell you, there's no point in doing this. There are far easier, less expensive, and much better ways to increase your website traffic. Ways that actually work and really do bring in more genuine, interested traffic.
1) Article Marketing. Done right (although this is terribly time-consuming if done entirely by hand), writing unique articles and submitting them to a variety of free article directories is a fantastic way to snatch up extra, genuine traffic. The people who find your article, or even use it on their own site or blog, will actually be looking for what it is you're talking about. They are therefore genuinely interested in your product or service.
In the mean time, while no one has yet seen that article, the search engines will find it. This gives your site valuable back links. And if the content is 100% unique, it will rank much higher in search engine results. And that is the kind of traffic you really want - organic website traffic from real people who were actually searching for products, services, and information about whatever it is you're in the business of providing.
2) Traffic, Banner, Link, and Ad exchanges. Although this kind of traffic isn't quite as organic as the aforementioned article marketing, it does lead to plenty of back links and real people are actually looking at your site. Some of them may even be interested. They are real people after all, and many are probably on the look out for something you know how to do or provide.
This isn't exactly targeted traffic, but it's far more targeted than the type many companies are trying to sell you. And it's also free or extremely low-cost.
3) Social Media Marketing. In today's age, this can't be emphasized enough. Leveraging your free accounts at various social networks is a fantastic way to generate a heck of a lot of targeted, organic traffic. Not only are these real people, but these are people who aren't going to be clicking on your link or ad without being interested in it.
The problem with this one is that it can take time to get enough followers, fans, friends, etc. on these different accounts to get very many clicks per day. True, there are places that will sell this to you, and it even works for some people. But gaining followers for free on Twitter is pretty easy if you go along with the #TeamFollowBack or #500aday or many other such hashtags.
And if you don't have the time to build and maintain a decent following on the social networks, there are plenty of people who will tweet your links, advertise your site to FaceBook groups, etc. on Fiverr. And it's cheap. I don't consider this cheating. You're only hiring someone to tweet your site, you aren't buying followers. You're asking them to advertise your site to their FaceBook fans, you aren't buying likes. So your traffic should be just as targeted as if you were doing it all yourself, but this might save you some time to work on your site, blog, product, or service offerings.
These are some of the best ways I have found thus far for generating genuine traffic and increasing exposure for your business online. There's always PPC ads of course. They certainly do bring in traffic from genuinely interested people online, but PPC is usually very expensive. There's also a lot of competition for the best keywords, which is really going to cut into your bottom line. So I say - it's time to get creative!
Showing posts with label advertising on social networks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising on social networks. Show all posts
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Review of Article Marketing
Taking advantage of article marketing isn't only for affiliate marketers. If you have a site or blog, this can be a wonderful way to gain more exposure and get a hold of those wonderful little back links that make your search engine ranking sky rocket. But there are a few things to keep in mind.
1) Writing just one article, all the same words and phrases, and uploading it to hundreds of different free article directories can be a horribly time-consuming task. Luckily, there are article submitters, which can submit that article you spent time writing to hundreds or thousands of different article directories automatically. These save countless hours when compared to having to go to each and every individual article directory site and submit your articles manually. My favorite so far (of those I've tried) is Magic Submitter.
2) If you write just that one article, with all the same words and phrases, and submit it to 500 different directories, search engines will see it as a whole lot of duplicate content. So I suggest using an article spinner (like the one that comes included with the clicky above) in order to have that same article you just wrote "spun" into multiple variations. The article will essentially be the same, but it will have more unique content. For this, you will interject synonyms or alternate sentences (and even titles) that the spinner will randomly choose when it creates hundreds of versions of your article, then submits a different version to each directory when you use the submitter.
These spinners have a thesaurus included, which is rather extensive, and so you should have no issues finding multiple ways of saying the same thing. Done correctly, this will only take you another 30 minutes or so and you'll have hundreds or thousands of different variations of the same article, reducing the amount of duplicate content you could be penalized for in the search engines.
Like I said, it's not just affiliate marketers that should take advantage of this level of site promotion. Anyone with a site or blog can benefit from having more exposure and back links. What I like most about the Magic Submitter is the fact that it also submits to a variety of social media, not just article directories. And it is very well put together, in my opinion.
1) Writing just one article, all the same words and phrases, and uploading it to hundreds of different free article directories can be a horribly time-consuming task. Luckily, there are article submitters, which can submit that article you spent time writing to hundreds or thousands of different article directories automatically. These save countless hours when compared to having to go to each and every individual article directory site and submit your articles manually. My favorite so far (of those I've tried) is Magic Submitter.
2) If you write just that one article, with all the same words and phrases, and submit it to 500 different directories, search engines will see it as a whole lot of duplicate content. So I suggest using an article spinner (like the one that comes included with the clicky above) in order to have that same article you just wrote "spun" into multiple variations. The article will essentially be the same, but it will have more unique content. For this, you will interject synonyms or alternate sentences (and even titles) that the spinner will randomly choose when it creates hundreds of versions of your article, then submits a different version to each directory when you use the submitter.
These spinners have a thesaurus included, which is rather extensive, and so you should have no issues finding multiple ways of saying the same thing. Done correctly, this will only take you another 30 minutes or so and you'll have hundreds or thousands of different variations of the same article, reducing the amount of duplicate content you could be penalized for in the search engines.
Like I said, it's not just affiliate marketers that should take advantage of this level of site promotion. Anyone with a site or blog can benefit from having more exposure and back links. What I like most about the Magic Submitter is the fact that it also submits to a variety of social media, not just article directories. And it is very well put together, in my opinion.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Paid to Like and Tweet
Believe it or not, plenty of people (big and small, in business terms) will pay you to "like" their facebook page and/or "tweet" their products, services, brand, etc. This can be an excellent way to generate some extra money from home for something you're probably doing anyway. But beware... your friends and followers on these popular social networks didn't join just so that they can see advertisements every few minutes.
In order to make this idea work, without simply ticking off everyone who started following your timeline in the first place, you will have to continue to regularly and actively contribute genuine, useful content. Posting a few advertising tweets each day, or liking 10 different company or individual fan pages each day will be much more tolerable to your friends and followers if you're generally posting something more content-rich, fun, or socially interactive. This, in turn, will make your advertising tweet/likes far more valuable and effective for the people who were looking to pay you to do them!
There are a number of ways that you can find people who would be willing to pay you for this service, provided you have a strong following on one or more of these social networks.
1) Fiverr can actually be a fantastic place for you to throw up a gig to tweet a certain number of links to a certain number of followers, or guarantee a certain number of likes on Facebook, for a fee.
2) Sites like the one this link will take you to in a new window have listings from advertisers who are looking for someone who is willing to spend a certain amount of their social networking time on helping them get the word out about their products, services, programs, etc.
3) Joining a site like PaidPerTweet will allow people who are interested in hiring you to tweet their message/link find you. Sites like these can be rather competitive and there will be people who have a million or more followers that you're competing with, but their prices will also be more expensive than you're likely to charge for a single tweet to 1000 followers.
Social media marketing is huge right now. Marketers are realizing that this platform allows them to reach the largest, targeted audience possible without cutting so far into their profit margin that they may as well be giving the stuff away (which is what PPC has become for so many - but that's a different post). Regardless of experience or skill set, you too can take advantage of the social media marketing craze and leverage your pull in any/all the social networks you're a member of.
My take on it is this: I don't join social networks, or follow/befriend people just so that I can see advertisements, and I doubt you do either. But if my "friend" is posting a lot of fun and/or relevant content, I don't mind seeing an advertisement thrown my way now and then either. Ads are all over everything - the internet, the radio, TV, and so on. At least they aren't calling my house during dinner to try and get me to listen to their pitch! So go ahead, make a little money from the time you spend on Twitter or Facebook. Why not?
In order to make this idea work, without simply ticking off everyone who started following your timeline in the first place, you will have to continue to regularly and actively contribute genuine, useful content. Posting a few advertising tweets each day, or liking 10 different company or individual fan pages each day will be much more tolerable to your friends and followers if you're generally posting something more content-rich, fun, or socially interactive. This, in turn, will make your advertising tweet/likes far more valuable and effective for the people who were looking to pay you to do them!
There are a number of ways that you can find people who would be willing to pay you for this service, provided you have a strong following on one or more of these social networks.
1) Fiverr can actually be a fantastic place for you to throw up a gig to tweet a certain number of links to a certain number of followers, or guarantee a certain number of likes on Facebook, for a fee.
2) Sites like the one this link will take you to in a new window have listings from advertisers who are looking for someone who is willing to spend a certain amount of their social networking time on helping them get the word out about their products, services, programs, etc.
3) Joining a site like PaidPerTweet will allow people who are interested in hiring you to tweet their message/link find you. Sites like these can be rather competitive and there will be people who have a million or more followers that you're competing with, but their prices will also be more expensive than you're likely to charge for a single tweet to 1000 followers.
Social media marketing is huge right now. Marketers are realizing that this platform allows them to reach the largest, targeted audience possible without cutting so far into their profit margin that they may as well be giving the stuff away (which is what PPC has become for so many - but that's a different post). Regardless of experience or skill set, you too can take advantage of the social media marketing craze and leverage your pull in any/all the social networks you're a member of.
My take on it is this: I don't join social networks, or follow/befriend people just so that I can see advertisements, and I doubt you do either. But if my "friend" is posting a lot of fun and/or relevant content, I don't mind seeing an advertisement thrown my way now and then either. Ads are all over everything - the internet, the radio, TV, and so on. At least they aren't calling my house during dinner to try and get me to listen to their pitch! So go ahead, make a little money from the time you spend on Twitter or Facebook. Why not?
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