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As you begin marketing and promoting your online business you are going to
run into some unbelievable advertising opportunities. Generally speaking if the
ad offering sounds too good to be true--It is.
There are companies that will tell you they will get you listed in the top 10
search engines or place your link on millions of sites or they will get you
listed in the top 10 returns of search engines. This last one sounds similar to
the first, but there is a big difference.
Google searches over 3 billion pages during their searches. The companies that
tell you they will get you listed in the top 10 of the major search engines
would have to defy all the principles of math to do this. They could not work
with more than a few companies in order to achieve this and honestly, there is
no way they can get you listed in the top 10 of the search engines placements at
all unless they make up their own search terms and people search on that
specific term.
Stay away from the companies that tell you they are going to place you in search
engines for a fee, for the most part they will do nothing more than use a site
software submitter. You can get your own software for this or use an online
service and submit your site yourself for a lot less than what most SEO
companies charge for this service.
Guaranteed traffic-- They work fine for free sites or if your goal is to build a
database of names, but if you are selling a product or service, you will get
hits, but not many sales.
Mass email -- Any company that tells you they will send your ad to millions of
people for $20 or $30 is simply taking your money. This might sound inviting,
but do not waste your money. They are either using site submit tools or sending
your ad to millions of harvested email addresses. The companies who tell you
they are going to submit your site to millions of pages will most likely do what
they say, but you will not see any return and may even get you Spam complaints.
Mass emails are a complete waste of your money regardless of what product you
are selling. There are many sites that will tell you they will send your ad to
double opt-in lists of people. We have tried over a dozen of these services and
have barely received a hit, much less sales. The problem is you lose control
over your ad when you use mass email companies. There is no way to verify the ad
was sent and if you could verify it was sent, there is no way to tell it was
sent to the numbers they promise. Plus, you run the risk of being accused of
Spam.
Solo ads-- These are by far one of the best methods of promoting your product
and service. They are targeted, you can verify the numbers and you can subscribe
using a unique email and verify the ad was sent on the day and time it was
supposed to be sent.
Consultants-- Use your best judgment when hiring consultants, call some or send
an email and ask about a money back guarantee if they cannot meet the objectives
they set forth. I am not a big believer in money-back guarantees because if a
service is valuable and you can see the value before you buy, then a money back
guarantee is not necessary. However, if someone comes to you and says, I can
make your site profitable within 30 or 60 or 90 days and it is going to cost you
X amount of money, then they should give you your money back if they do not
achieve the desired results.
A good consultant will work with companies that he or she knows they can help by
relying on their background and expertise in certain areas of marketing and
advertising. Nobody knows everything, but if someone has an expertise in an area
that I lack knowledge with, I would hire him or her in a second if they can
honestly help me and they can prove they can help me and they will back up what
they tell me.
We get emails every day from people who want to join ISOR with the plan of
retiring in a month, making a million dollars without doing anything, etc. and
we turn every one of them down. There is no business on the Internet or in
traditional business where you can accomplish this type of unrealistic goal.
There are, however consultants who will tell you what you want to hear, just to
get your business. They take your money and run and they will not help you a
bit. We hired a copy writer one time who seemed like a good fit for our company
and only after she finished the writing at $120 an hour did she tell me that she
would not buy my product. Not because she could not benefit from it, but she
refused to pay for anything online. Her copy was terrible and we ended up
re--writing the entire sales page. Her feelings and beliefs came across in her
writings. It was simply impossible for her to write positively when her mind was
telling her negative things.
We have many marketing and advertising partners and all the companies we partner
with have been tested by us to offer valuable services, but there are thousands
of other companies on the Internet and you might find a very good company with a
very good service that works for you and within your budget. Not all companies
are out to cheat you, but the purpose of this article is to forewarn you
regarding where you spend your advertising dollars.
We have spent a lot of money and time buying and trying different advertising
options and by using our own ad campaign and link tracking system for all our
advertising campaigns we have the data to back up what we say.
Research your advertising options carefully and do not get pulled into a good
deal just because it sounds like a good deal. You do not need to spend a lot of
money to advertise and promote your business, you just need to use your common
sense and think long term.
Copyright 2004 Jeremy Gislason
About The Author
Jeremy Gislason has over 15 years of marketing experience and is the Vice
President of ISORegister, Inc. We are dedicated to helping online businesses
succeed by providing them with the tools and resources every online business
should not be without. Discover how ISOR has helped 1000's of ordinary people
and dozens of top Internet marketers earn a living online. Visit
http://www.isoregister.com
today.
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