How Not to Advertise

Here is my own little guide on how not to advertise a website.

Spam
Any form of spam will give your site bad credibility. I remember a statistic that only 0.00001% of people actually buys products through those e-mails with subjects like “Buy Cheap Viagra!!!!” – so spam doesn’t convert that well. There isn’t just e-mail spam, all forms of spam: blog comment spam, forum spam, digg.com spam and all the other ways to get your site noticed. The only real exception to this is MySpace Spam.

Auto-Surf
What is Auto-Surf? Basically, you leave your web browser running and it visits a bunch of sites and each time you view a site you get ‘credit’. You can use this ‘credit’ to have people view your site in just the same way. The thing is, people are never at the computer whilst doing this, making auto-surfing fairly pointless, unless you want to inflate your stats.

Traffic-Exchanges
Very similar to auto-surfing, except it isn’t automatic. You have to manually click “Next Site” with each site you view, making this more reliable than auto-surfing, but you could be using this time for something a lot more useful. All in all – stay away from traffic exchanges and auto-surfing.

Link Farms
Link Farms or FFA Link Pages are simply a page dedicated to try and boost your Google Pagerank, now Google isn’t that stupid. Sites that are noticed using link farms or FFA pages will be penalized or banned from Google. I am not talking about a web directory, they’re fine, I’m talking about just 1 page, where you can add your link, and that’s it’s only purpose.

Paid Traffic
Those deals that say $3.99 for 1000 visitors are worthless – they are usually either:

* Pop Up Traffic
* Fake Traffic from the same source
* Other unwanted Source

Paid Traffic is 100% useless (no, I don’t mean PPC) – stay away.

Article is from My Blog

 

Good little guide, really appreciate it for increment of knowledge.

Most of it is common sense, but it is appreciable that you took the time to put it together in a nice way.

Also include Chat room spam in the Spam area. It is also a bad way to advertise. I will think up of more suggestions for this little guide soon

IT

 

Thanks for the comments. I like writing "common-sense" guides, as usually the simple stuff is what people forget.

 

Allow me to add popups to your list!

 

Good summary especially for beginners

 

yep, good summary, sometimes its quite shocking that people just leave out their common sense, especially those into paid traffic etc. I wish they'd stop to think..

 

That is really a helpfull "beginners guide", but of course spam and such are quite common sense not to use.

//Andreas

 

if i have a collection of contacts from my im contacts and put up a forward not to all of them...will it b considered as spam?

 

Yep!

You are quite right. All them forms of advertising you mentioned is a waste of time and don't get you anywhere.

 

lol good advice i boght some traffic a while back when i was a noob and it didnt help at all its all a scam... anyone want to buy some traffic? lol jk

 

Good list you got there.

 

I still don't quite see the difference to web directories, except that they have more than 1 page. Otherwise its all just links. So how does google know the difference (if any) between a Link Farm of hm, lets say 20 pages and a web directory with 20 categories?

 

Why is Myspace spam the only exception for spam that works? Can you elaborate more?

 

i think that google know because on each page all the content is consistent meaning that they are all related knowing that google categorizes as a directory and not a link farm. link farm normally have unrelated sites on the same page. at least that's what i think

 

i dont see a difference between myspace spam and email spam and all those others listed... both are unwanted by reciever and are spam

 

That would mean someone could enter their competitor site on a link farm and penalize them? I don't think so.

 

No, you won't get penalized by having your url on a site recognized by Google as a linkfarm. You just won't get any benefit from it either. Read Google's webmaster guidelines for more info.

 

no single oneway link (or group of links) will harm your position in google
thats right from googles mouth

 

Ah, but what about some actual stats to back up what is being said?
I disagree 100% with the email spam being worthless... I have tried it and found it to be the Very Best way to draw members to your site...
Secondly, traffic by itself is worhtless... Drawing from MySpace, which is mainly 19 year olds and below is of little value to most sites.... Just traffic with no results.
Below is some "real" data I have tracked regarding my own site promotions...
Note the SPAM email results!
Some of the advise given is "right on the mark"... "some is totally wrong"


Press Release: Done thru “Professionals” = $600.00 = ( 0 ) new members.
Banner ad on a forum with 225,000 members. The Forum limits the number of ads run each month so that your ad is shown over 1,000,000 times in a month. = $500/month = (10 ) new members.
Banner ad on a forum with 32,000 members. = $450/month = ( 15 ) - new members.
Banner ad on a forum with 25,000 members. = $450/year = ( 22 ) new members.
After spending the $$$, I found this article: Headline of article printed in USA Today… 3/26/2006 = “Screaming banner ads get little notice” Conclusion at end of article = “The study presented echoes the findings of an earlier study that reported “Consumers are Blind to Banner Ads”

Google ad words: $200.00 for ppc program…ran about a month = ( 0 ) new members.

Started and ran my own email program (SPAM). I sent a very honest offer, letting the recipient know a little about the site and a link to it. I complied with all of the CAN-SPAM regulations. Results = Total emails sent ( 101,366 )
Returned/improper address ( 43,135 )
Request to “remove” from future mailings ( 316 )
Complaints sent to ISP ( 10 )
New Members signed: ( 1,696 )… AOL had my site cancelled because of 3 complaints, I had to move to another Registrar and Hosting company.
As the results were so good and I did not want my site shut down again, I decided to spend the money and pay the list brokers on the internet to send a mailing to their “Opt-In” list.
Results:
Purchased opt-in email list (sent by the Seller) $100.00 for 50,000 = ( 0 ) new members. I was able to get my money back.
Purchased opt-in email list (sent by the Seller) $100.00 for 25,000 = ( 0 ) new members. I was able to get my money back.
Purchased opt-in email list (sent by the Seller) $650.00 for 500,000 = ( 0 ) new members. I was able to get my money back.
Purchased a pop-under program… $50.00 for 25,00 pop-under ads = ( 0 ) new members.
Contacted three of the top rated opt-in email list brokers…. (Sit down for this one) Quotes for mailing were: $4,000, $4,500 & $6,000 to mail to 50,000!!! (Each list comes with a toll-free number to the nearest bankruptcy attorney at no additional charge!)

 

so email program (SPAM) was the one that worked the best