Online Advertising Do's and Dont's

The Do's and Dont's of Internet Advertising

By S. Hunter & G. Kosch

If you are like most people you've probably been hearing a lot of talk about the Internet. But for the average person this technical talk is unfamiliar territory; you may not even have a computer. But the good news is this. Advertising on the Internet can be inexpensive, a good way to promote your product, opportunity or service, and it doesn't have to be a painful process. However, there are some things to know and we have put together a list of do's and don'ts for advertising on the Internet so you invest your money wisely and get the best results for your advertising dollar.

There is a huge discrepancy in what advertising services are charging for placing an ad or home page on the Internet. Quite simply the reasons for this are two fold customers aren't do the necessary comparison shopping to get the best price; and some services are taking advantage of the consumers lack of knowledge about this form of advertising to charge unreasonable rates. So do take the time to compare advertising services and select a reasonably priced advertising service that doesn't make you pay through the nose for an ad or home page. A reasonable price is $20 - $50 per month depending on the complexity and design of your home page.

Don't choose a cut rate advertising service who merely takes your money, places your ad and does nothing to promote your page or the site where you are placed. No promotion means no results.

Determine exactly how the advertising service you have selected is going to promote your individual page or their site as a whole. Does the service promote their site where your ad will be listed in the traditional print media, on the Internet or with other advertising sources?

Find out how many visitors the advertising service is attracting to the site where your ad will be placed. Reputable services that are doing the necessary promotion to bring traffic to their site (and thus to yours) should have a counter that records the number of visitors. You need to know this information just like if you were to advertise in a newspaper or a magazine you would want to know the circulation of the publication.

Find out exactly how the service will place your ad or home page. Too many advertising services charge an exorbitant fee to stack your 100 word ad on top of all previous advertisers with new advertisers being placed on top of yours until eventually your at the bottom of a 50 page website. At best you should get your own listing that links to your own ad or home page.

Do make sure to get the web site address of the advertising service before you place an ad or home page. Then make an effort to visit that site and see what the other ads look like, if the site is well managed, organized and if it is somewhere you would like to be listed. Does your ad or home page fit with the theme of the advertising site?

Will you be able to attract a specific target market there or will you be advertising to those with no interest in what you are offering?

Compare the cost of placing a home page to the cost of taking out a classified ad. If you do some comparison shopping you can usually get a better deal on an entire home page then on just taking a 5 - 10 line classified ad.

Consider taking a 6 month or 1 year ad because longer term rates are usually a better buy then purchasing advertising space a month at a time. The other advantage is that Internet advertising unlike other forms doesn't usually product an immediate response. On the Internet your ad is up 24 hrs a day for an extended period of time and if you have selected the right advertising service there will constantly be new visitors to the site and return visits from previous patrons. The hit rate to your ad will fluctuate and so too will the rate of response.

Do make your ad interesting, informative and customer centered.

Avoid a "frilly tech" page that offers the visitor nothing of use. Fancy graphics and elaborate design mean nothing to the visitor if the ad is not meaningful and beneficial to that person. Give visitors a reason for coming to your home page or your ad; a reason for staying there to read what you have to offer; and a reason to come back in the future.

Do offer visitors to your site something useful in return for visiting your site. We have conducted extensive research on the Internet and have found some very obvious mistakes that people are making when offering a product, service or opportunity. Too many home pages are novel but otherwise useless. You want to give visitors to your site something for their time. Specifically this might be a free or special offer on any products or services you are selling. Do this by getting visitors to respond via e-mail, a toll free number, a mailing address, fax etc. so that you can record the names, e-mails, and mailing addresses for follow-up.

Do take the time to get on the Internet yourself either through a public access site or by cashing in on a favor from a friend who does have access. Do some "surfing" and see for yourself what you like and don't like. Check out the site of the advertising service you are interested in. A quick note about browsers, this is the tool that allows you to view images, text and other neat things on the World Wide Web. Some browsers only allow the viewer to see text and do not support tables, color, graphics or other technical features. If you view the Internet with either the Netscape Navigator or the Microsoft Explorer browsers you will be able to see these things in all their glory . If you try to view it with one of the older or text based browsers provided by some of the on-line service companies chances are you will be disappointed.

Finally there are two kinds of people in the world; those that are on the Internet and using it to their advantage, and those "so-called experts" who are just talking about it. If you can't get on the World Wide Web yourself do yourself a big favor and get the straight facts from someone who does know.

George Kosch M.Sc., is the Systems Manager and Sandra Hunter BST., BSW., BA, is the Director of Website Development for the Worldprofit Malls on the World Wide Web. Check out the Worldprofit Malls at http://www.worldprofit.com for freebies

galore or e-mail webmaster@worldprofit.com for details.