Getting Tough On Online Marketing/Promoting A Website (Part 1 Of 3)

GeneralI own the website www.T-ShirtShowdown.com and I can tell you that marketing/promoting a websites isn’t as easy as it used to be and it’s getting a whole lot harder. Website owners now have to come up with unique and creative ways to go about marketing their site to have it seen and noticed on the Internet. I’ve done promotion over the last several years and have seen many changes on what used to work effectively and what doesn’t work anymore. I’ve tried almost every marketing technique that you could possibly imagine, both free and paid.Creating an online business has appealed to many as an easy way to bring in additional income, but as many find out, it’s much harder to create a successful business online then what they thought it would be. This is due to the fact that there are a lot of things you have to consider when creating an online business and one of the biggest issues that people don’t realize is that marketing/promoting a business takes a lot of time, hard work and it sometimes even means spending a lot of money. Marketing/promoting a business is every webmasters worst nightmare, but it’s something that is required when you own an online business.When e-commerce started on the Internet, it was a new and exciting way to purchase products without having to leave your house. There was always something new to discover, see and do on the Internet. Well as the years have worn on, the Internet doesn’t fascinate people as easily as what it used to do when it first began. More and more people have now set standards as to what’s acceptable and what’s not when visiting a website. This includes speed, graphics, pop-ups, advertisements, easy navigation, etc. People are setting their standards higher for what they want to see in a website and are now more likely to close out of a website if it doesn’t meet their standards. Even webmasters are getting much wiser when it comes down to creating their websites and this is why marketing/promotion has become much tougher for new website businesses.Websites that don’t look or feel professional or websites that are annoying (sounds, blinking text/images, pop-ups, etc.) are going to turn away visitors. Even I close out of websites that look amateur in nature and you probably do too. The reason being is that everyone who browses the World Wide Web is alert for scammers, viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, etc. There have been so many horror stories over the last several years, whether they are about viruses, identity theft, or any other kind of threat, that people are more aware and less acceptable to certain kinds of sites. Let’s face it; nobody wants to encounter a problem that could potentially harm their computer while browsing the Internet and you may say, “I’ve got anti-programs to prevent this from happening”. The keyword here is “prevent”, it doesn’t say it will stop every bad thing from entering your computer, but it’ll try to prevent it. It’s estimated that about 500 new potentially dangerous viruses/trojans are discovered each month. This doesn’t count for all the viruses/trojans that go un-detected or un-reported, so yes, people do have the right to be very concerned when browsing the Internet. The Internet can be a great place to shop and spend your time and it can also be a very dangerous place as well. It’s now easier then ever before to create your very own website or online business, many thanks to turnkey websites. Turnkey websites have been a big success for businesses that first began to sell them because people want a cheap and fast solution to having a business online. Let’s be honest, people don’t want to go through the hassle or work of creating a custom designed website, they want it cheap and as soon as possible. The problem is there are now hundreds of websites that look similar in design to each other because of these turnkey websites. When you have websites that look very similar in design to each other, the Internet just got a little more boring. I almost always tend to close out of a website when I see that it looks similar to many of the other websites on the Internet, probably because I know that they’re turnkey businesses and are most likely trying to sell something that doesn’t work. You see most turnkey businesses promise that you don’t have to do much work to make a profit and that the website will pretty much run itself. If this was true, then why aren’t there a lot more successful people making a lot of profit on the Internet? This is yet just another advertising technique to make you want to purchase their products. I have to admit though that turnkey websites are good for getting the basics of your website created, but you need to customize the website to make it unique and stand out from the rest. A boring website means boring products or services and you’ll find that most people won’t stay very long on your website. Everybody is looking for something unique and interesting and this is why websites with flash are becoming more popular because they have many possibilities.Due to the Internet changing, I’ve decided to write an article about the many different marketing/promotion methods that I’ve personally tried in the past and present. I will also try to give you some information about each one and if I feel that they are an effective way to market/promote your website. There are many articles out there on marketing/promotion, but they don’t explain the methods and if the methods still work. Many of the articles are also out-dated, which of course are useless to the new webmaster trying to market/promote their website. Many website owners are always constantly asking the same questions like “What marketing/promotion methods work?” or “How do I market/promote my website to receive traffic as fast as possible?”. Let me just clear a couple things up. There’s no easy way to go about marketing/promoting a website, unless you hire someone to do it for you. There are also no secrets or ways to achieve natural traffic easily and quickly anymore, due to the fact that there’s a lot of competition no matter what business you’re in. By reading this article, you’ll hopefully come out a lot wiser and won’t waste a lot of time or money trying to find the right solution to market/promote your website.Now, I just want to tell you before you start reading the different marketing/promotion methods below, that you should make sure your website is COMPLETE before doing any marketing/promotion. DON’T start marketing/promoting your website if it’s under construction. People see this as a website that’s incomplete and search engines are also starting to recognize these sites and placing them lower in the search results.You can find this article and several more at www.T-ShirtShowdown.com.Buying/Purchasing TrafficEvery online business knows that targeted high quality traffic to their website is the key to their success. The best kind of traffic is “natural” traffic and that’s where you don’t have to market/promote to get the desired traffic that you want. Every business however, needs to market/promote when they first begin and if you own a new business online, you’ll find that you have to market/promote a great deal. Eventually, you won’t have to market/promote as much when your business is established, but getting to that point takes time, effort, and even spending money. A lot of people when first starting an online business, under-estimate the task of marketing/promotion and this is usually the reason why they fail online.One of the methods of getting traffic, and you’ve probably seen them advertise their services on the Internet before, as there’s many of them around, is to buy/purchase traffic. This is where you pay a certain amount of money for a certain number of unique visitors to visit your website. My advice is, NEVER BUY TRAFFIC. I used this kind of service several years ago when trying to promote one of my businesses and it worked excellent. I was able to get the traffic I needed and real people actually looked around my website at my products and services. I recently decided to try this service again from a couple of different sources to see if it still worked, but was disappointed to see that it was no longer effective.Why doesn’t this method work anymore? Turnkey website businesses are mostly to blame. Anyone can purchase a traffic turnkey website business with little effort in running it on their part. These websites come with a program that generates virtual traffic, which is why the owner of the website doesn’t have to do any labour. The program is able to generate different computer IP addresses and send a computer robot to your website and make it look like you’re getting a lot of traffic. Your stats counter will increase every time the robot visits because the robot will have a different virtual IP address that it generated when it does. It’s all just another scam to generate easy profits without doing any work.You can find this article and several more at www.T-ShirtShowdown.com.Continued in Part 2If you’d like to copy this article and place it on your website or pass it around, then you are FREE to do so as long as you copy the article in it’s entirety, keep the links intact, and don’t make any modifications whatsoever.

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