Traffic, is another one of my pet peeves. I am the worst complainer on the planet when I am stuck in traffic. I don’t know why, but it really irritates me. Website traffic is another thing all together, the more traffic the better. This has got to be another big “stalling” point for beginners.
Like I said, I have set-up and maintained a couple of business and band websites. The business sites where put in place, as a convenience for customers. The band sites where used as bulletin boards of coming events. So, traffic wasn’t a huge issue. Neither site was designed to make money by itself.
Total number of “hits” numbered in the 100’s. I need thousands of hits, daily. There are 1,700,290,316 internet users worldwide. 266,244,500 live in North America. That is a pretty large potential audience. I understand why internet marketing is still growing. From 200-2010 internet usage has grown worldwide by 444% and by 146% in North America (statistics from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm).
Almost 150% growth in ten years. And I would think with recent growth in cell phone tech (I-phone, Android) internet usage should soar over the next ten years. Remember, I am working to develop a long term internet marketing business. Looking out 10 years is a good idea. Even the next 5 years should show a big jump in usage. Looking to the end of this year, I feel the internet is a very strong market.
Gas and retail pricing is rising daily. From what I have heard on CNBC when gas prices reach $4.00/gal. consumers will start to re-think automobile usage. I am seeing the same thing at the grocery store, all beef hot dogs are now $5.00 a pound (on sale!). People will need to save money somewhere or they will be looking for ways to increase their income without buying gas.
That should bode well for internet marketing. The $20,000 question is how do I get them to my websites.
Like in any business “it pays to advertise”. Since my business is web related it only makes sense to advertise on the web. As consumers in the “real” world we see advertising in a fairly limited number of places. Television, radio, newspapers (magazines), billboards (all types) and of course the internet. It makes no sense to spend money advertising on T.V. or radio. Newspaper and magazine advertising is expensive and is limited to distribution. Billboards aren’t bad, but you would be expecting drivers to remember a web address.
Internet advertising is the logical option. Here is where my knowledge is limited. I am not an internet marketer by trade. I am learning this as we go and sharing it in the blog. I have found a couple of sites that allow you to view internet ads in exchange for advertising credits. The exchange rate is about 80%.
Since I do not want to spend money on advertising (or anything else) this seemed ideal. EasyHits4U is one of those sites. You can choose the length of the ads you are willing to view. A 20 second ad pays 1 ad credit. You can then turns those ad credits into impressions. Impressions are counted each time a page is visited by a user. For each impression you purchase, they will show your ad to one person.
You have number of ways to show your ad. Most common is the “splash page”. This is a one page ad designed to get the consumers interest. Basically, you have 20 seconds (actually more like 3 or 4) to convince that viewer to visit your site. It is then up to your site to turn them into customers.
Splash pages are very common in internet advertising. These are the pages that make all the promises of wealth and happiness. Then they send you to a website that either delivers or it doesn’t.
Here’s the caveat, the ads are viewed by people being paid to view ads.
Here is how I view ads. I have 3 sites were I view ads. I open all 3 in different windows. I access an ad in each window. Then the ad has about 3 seconds to catch my eye, if not I minimize that window and do the same with the next, then I keep rotating through the sites until I have viewed all the ads available. The only thing I am looking for is more internet marketing information. I would think this process is pretty close to the norm. I am usually done with the whole process in about 20 minutes a day.
The good news is some of it actually sticks. Since most sites have data collection tools, you can easily see where traffic originates. If it comes from EasyHits4U each impression is recorded. Just because someone views your splash page does not mean they view your site. “Click” data is also collected. These are the viewers who actually visited the site.
I have received 126 “clicks” (not impressions) on my advertising since it started running. Since I was just testing the process I am using a text link to my Go Daddy affiliate site. No sales, but like I said I was just testing the waters. The ad continues to run. I also created a splash page ad for my blog site. One of the cool things about EasyHits is the amount of control you have over the whole system. You have complete control of how you credits are spent. You decide how many times a day you want your ad viewed.
If you have accumulated 1000 credits (which doesn’t take long), you can allocate them to each ad and then you can specify how many times a day the ad will be shown. You can limit it to 100 showings a day and spread it out over the week rather than use all 1000 in one day. I would think spreading it out over a number of days increases your chances of being in front of a larger number of viewers.
To get a feel for this type of site give them a visit http://www.easyhits4u.com/?ref=emac2011. I highly recommend this site. Lots of free tools, easy to use (although it doesn’t like Firefox) and the option to upgrade if it works for you. If you look at the link, you will see, ?ref=emac2011 at the end of the address. That is my referral code. That way if you click on the link and join I will receive referral bonus ad credits. Then as a member you can do the same. Outlook for tomorrow!! Light traffic with a chance of sales.
Peace
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