Buying Hits – Is It Worth The Money.

I remember when I first started building websites, it was great seeing the sites take shape as we went from “blank canvas” to “ready for display.”  One thing was disappointing, however.  No matter how good I thought the sites were, they never got a lot of visitors fast enough to suit me.  After all, what fun is it to have a great site that no one sees.  It’s bruising to the ego and, worse yet, it doesn’t make you any money.  That’s where the temptation to take short-cuts comes in.

In my search to get people to visit my sites, I tried a lot of things.  I paid for submission to search engines, joined banner exchanges, joined site rotation schemes, pay-per-click ads, etc.,  If you can think of a way to promote a website, odds are that I’ve tried it at one time or another.  Some worked much better than others.  One technique still sticks out in my mind.  It is the use of “purchased hits.”

If you go on eBay or search the web, you can find many companies offering to send you thousands of visitors for a small fee.  This sounds really good and you may be tempted to take the plunge, but be warned.  Things aren’t always as they seem. 

When you purchase hits, the vendor usually sends your site out as a pop-up or pop-under window on other sites.  So, while you are technically getting the number of hits you paid for, you’re not getting qualified, interested traffic.  A good number of visitors will not even be English speaking and, for those who do speak English, they have not requested to see your site so they have no vested interest in it.  In fact, most of the people who are seeing your site are likely to view it as a nuisance instead of something they are interested in.  This is a double whammy.  Not only have you gained negative attention for your site, but you’ve spent money to do it.  Ouch!

Oh, it gets worse.  In addition, many web hosting companies consider this activity as a form of SPAM and may close down your hosting account.  Talk about adding insult to injury.

All-in-all, I don’t believe that paid hits are the way to go.  I would suggest using that money for more reputable advertising, such as pay-per-click or e-zine ads where you are at least getting visits from people who really want to see your site.

Tips For Mailing Your Visitors

One thing a lot of new webmasters (and many experienced ones) want to know is what is the best way to send e-mail messages to your website visitors?  Well, you basically have three options.  You can:

1. Use your e-mail client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc) to manually send e-mails to your visitors.
2. Use a script to automate the process and send the messages directly from your website’s server.  And. . .
3. Use a paid service. Read more

The Truth About Traffic Exchanges

Once you have your new website up and running, it’s only natural that you want to get traffic to it.  After all, it’s no fun if you’re the only person who ever sees your site.  If your site is business-related, a lack of traffic can be deadly to your business goals.  With that in mind, it is easy to see why so many people are attracted to “traffic exchanges.”   Sure, the premise looks good.  You look at other people’s websites and, in return, they visit yours.  What could be wrong with that?  Well, actually, there is plenty wrong with that. Read more

Spammers Hijack Popular Promotion Technique

Have you ever been to a great website and noticed a link asking you to share the site with a friend?  Odds are that you have.  It is a very popular way of using word-of-mouth advertising for the site.  After all, we’re much more likely to trust the recommendation of a friend than we are to trust hype and ads from strangers.  It’s that friend-to-friend approach that makes this technique so appealing. Read more