getting traffic

[Terri]

Hi all,

I'd like to know what you more experienced affilates think of paid traffic services where you can buy a certain number of targeted hits to your website. Has anyone used these services and if so, I'd love to know your experience with them. Are there any legit services out there?

It sounds too good to be true and probably is, but I'd like to hear your thoughts anyway!

Thanks,
Terri

 

[Brandon Tanner]

Terri...

These kinds of 'services' run the gamut from (mostly) being worthless to (occasionally) being OK. I'd say to research them with the BBB but most of these companies haven't even been around long enough to have much of a record (but maybe a few do). Your best bet is just to spend a *small* amount with a few of them and see if it's worth it to you. Yes, many of them will bring extra traffic to your site but it's rarely targeted traffic, regardless of what they promise.

 

[Terri]

Thanks, Brandon

The prices actually seem very reasonable (20-30). I may try one just to see if it works. But I will do more research into what services can actually deliver somewhat decent traffic. It's not a bad deal even if they are half as good as they say!

 

[Joseph Ratliff]

I have found (still a little new though) that these services drive no to little traffic.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I have tried several traffic services. Have to say that for me it's very hard to measure how effect it was since I don't "sell" anything I can't see uptake in conversions. But I did check my stats and most of the traffic never clicked through to another page on my site, which tells me it either was not the targeted webmaster traffic I thought I was buying or more likely just was not real visitors at all.

For some good low cost traffic from REAL visitors see if you can find any blogads.com or Adbrite - http://www.adbrite.com/mb/?spid=9423
(I'm the mod so I get to plant referral ids!) You can go there direct if you don't want to use it.

 

[Eminem]

Hey Teri,

I used visitorboost.com for one of my sites...Not sure if it helped. I don't believe it did...My quota of 1000 visitors has been completed and I think it helped me a LITTLE...not much I guess since I was very busy and wasn't able to visit my website frequently.

 

[Terri]

Much thanks to everyone who replied. I guess I'll reconsider my decision to use it. Such great advice on this forum!

Congrats on your award Eminem!

 

[Eminem]

Thanks Terri!

 

[tosslow]

Terri

I just recently found a new resource, new to me at least, which I find generally good in providing more targeted traffic. This site has various types of advertising both free and paid. It also allows you to review other sites and to also have your own site reviewed. I post the reviews received for my site on a designated page. That way visitors can look and see what other business people are saying about my business and my products. I think it looks really Professional. You're welcome to take a look HERE . By the way if you decide to try it out, I'd appreciate you joining under me.

Regards

Jim

 

[StephenR]

These "traffic services" are in my humble opinion....booty. They usually prey on virgin marketers and their results are dismal at best....otherwise we'd all be doing it. What we are ALL doing is writing articles. It just plain works. Spend your money elsewhere by hiring ghostwriters to write original keyword dense articles for you. You can easily hire a good writer from Elance.com to accomplish this for you. I think the going rate is about 4-5 bucks per article usually 300-450 words long.....people generally don't read anything longer than that. =) This generates life long traffic towards your business unlike those "flash bang" traffic services.

 

[Rob_TID]

Sephen - where are you submitting your articles and how many articles would you write for a new site on a competitive niche?

 

[StephenR]

Rob, please investigate using ArticleMarketer (most cost efficient), iSnare, The Phantom Writers, SubmitYourArticle and Article Announcer .

I'm also going to be conducting a test using Text-Link-Ads new article submission service. It looks VERY appealing but comes with a hefty price tag of $600 a pop. However, the integrity of TLA and experience behind the company ease my worries. If it works out I'll probably have them do a submission once a month. More to come on that in the next few months though

Competitive Niche:

USE SEMIOLOGIC

120+ short articles - add one every 2-3 days to your blog. You can even automate this. Go to nichebot.com and do a search. Copy and send all your targeted keywords to your hired ghostwriter and have them generate articles focused on those keywords.

10-20 solid, keyword dense articles to make up the pages of your website - You'd do best to write these yourself.

2 unique articles per month to be submitted to all the directories - ghostwriter again unless you have time

If you're launching multiple niche sites OUTSOURCE as much as your budget allows so you can focus on launching more niche sites.

As an additional inside scoop I'm also looking at BlogToRank. This tool would be perfect for setting up niche sites...but...as a rule of thumb I usually steer clear of scraper tools (even though the search engines do not mind scraped info...contrary to popular belief). Does anyone use this or know of someone that does?

 

[bcowan]

Traffic building

Terri,

I must say that most 'traffic exchanges' etc, have been pretty useless for me. Most of my successful traffic has come from viral ebooks (anyone can write these, it ain't so difficult), forum postings (of course) and customer incentives (discounts, vouchers, etc).

Concentrate on how YOU can develop traffic rather than 'buying' dubious quality traffic from third parties. Unless you can develop your own techniques you'll always have to be paying for traffic that could be auto-generating.

Good luck!

 

[tosslow]

Virgin Marketers

"These traffic exchanges usually prey on Virgin Marketers."

I maybe a Novice Marketer but a virgin? - Hardly - Virgin Marketers always have something to lose, usually their hard earned CASH. I've already gone through that stage and I have the Credit Card Debt to show for it.

For all you Newbie and Novice Marketers - Don't be anymore afraid to explore Traffic Exchanges then you would be in exploring Forums such as this one.

Remember - Never put all your eggs in one basket and always Test, Test, Test.

For those of you just starting out, take the advice of a fool who's been there " Put Your Credit Card Away". Nay, "Lock it up."

Until you have gained experience and knowledge, FREE is the way to go. Learn by doing. Making mistakes is part of the learning curve. Learning not what to do is just as important as learning what you should do.

Yes, you may experience dismal results at the outset. But I would much rather have dismal results and a healthy Bank Account then to have obtained a truckload of ebooks, or how to books or ghost writer fees; and at the end of it all to still not know what I am doing.

Remember, this internet is for us Real People - Not Phantoms.

Jim