Ways to Gain Web Exposure
Whether you want some exposure or massive exposure, especially
on the internet, you got to put some work into it. Just think
about it; either you are trying to advertise a product or a
website; you will have to start somewhere. People are not just
going to be able to find your site or product; out of 3 billions
websites in this world, what are the chances that one will
accidentally type in your domain name.
Many advertisers use search engines to get exposed, paying so
much per click that does not even guarantee that that click will
get them the sales to justify the money that they just paid to
the search engine for that particular click. Unless you don't
care about losing $100 daily in Google or Yahoo!, you may want
to stay away from search engines for now--check out Search
Engine Optimization.
How about banner advertisements? Not only does it have lower
conversion rate than search engine CPC (cost-per-click)
advertising method, it costs you more up front, if you want the
right audience. Unless you have a couple of thousand to spare,
without any guarantees, try to avoid banner advertisements--and
that goes for banner exchange as well, which I personally find
totally worthless unless you receive so much traffic to your
site that you will get more from the banner exchange program.
But by the time you receive so much traffic, you won't need to
go looking for banner exchange software or programs to gain more
exposure; they will come looking for you.
The simplest solution I found for product advertising, spending
the least amount of money, is advertising on eBay or any similar
marketplace. I'm not talking about listing just one lousy
listing. List multiples of them. Don't be like the ones that
list 10 at the same time. If you are thinking about listing 10
of them, spread them out maybe in one hour intervals. The more
you list, the more exposure. Some marketplace will cost you, but
some are free (eg. craiglist.org). You can't list so many on
craiglist.org because they are very strict with spammers. They
will even block your IP address for 24 hours so you can't access
their site. If you can come up with different titles and
descriptions for every listing you post, you will probably avoid
the trouble of getting caught by craig.
If you are trying to get your website exposed, eBay is a bad
idea. People don't go to eBay looking to find another site to
shop at; eBay is probably the consumer's final stop to shop. If
you really want to get involved in getting your site exposed on
the web without throwing your money away at search engines, go
submit your site in web directories. There are thousands and
thousands of web directories where you can submit your site
to--and majority of them are free. Some of them you got to pay
to submit, but it's only a one time thing, and usually, the
paying ones receive more traffic. Don't spend time submitting to
web directories that bring in like 10 unique visitors a day.
Start from the busiest ones first, and move your way down. To
make your life easier, download Alexa Toolbar, which will show
you where the site you are at that moment is ranked, and by
clicking on the number rank, you can sort of see how busy the
site really is.
Another way to get exposed on the web is through an affiliate
program. Your site will have to be a bit established before
starting up an affiliate program not only because it may cost a
lot to create such program, but your site will also need traffic
to have interested affiliates to post your banners or products
on their website. Big sites like Amazon.com, Buy.com,
Overstock.com, and even eBay.com have their own affiliate
programs, which brings them massive traffic resulting in
millions in revenue and sales. If your site has traffic and
something to show, affiliate program can really get you going.
If you have another way of getting more exposure that I haven't
mentioned and you would like to share, please feel free to email
me at missing@imbae.net