Marketing Basics

As you have hopefully seen over the past few threads i have posted, marketig to your surfers is probably the single most important thing you can do on your sites, if your marketing is good, you can pretty much get away with selling ice to Eskimos however, if your marketing sucks, you'll not be able to get surfers to join a site.

With that in mind, lets take a look at a few different hints and tips you can use when marketing to your site visitors:

1. Experiment.

Dont be afraid to experiment with the various types of marketing available to you on your sites, banners can work well sometimes, text can work well sometimes, using both together can work sometimes. Find a balance of using both text and banners that will work well for you. Never forget that by using either / or can result in the surfer hitting your site becoming immune to your marketing, mix things up to keep your ads fresh and, so that the surfer doesnt find an ad at the top of your sites pages when they expect to see one there.

2. Ad placement is important.

No matter what type of site you run, where you place your ads is just as important, if not more so, than what your ads say. How many sites have you seen that have a banner in the middle of the page at the top, in the middle and, on the bottom? now, how many surfers do you think have also seen the same ad placements? Consider this, when you 'read' a page, you read from left to right, top to bottom correct? With this in mind, the premium placements for your ads should be, top-left, middle-middle, bottom-right. By placing your ads in these positions, you are giving the surfer something to see advertising your sponsors the second they hit your sites, whilst they are half way through browsing your sites and, more importantly, the last place they see on your sites which brings me to..

3. Last view.

Make sure that the absolute last thing on ANY of your sites a surfer see's is an ad for your sponsor. Counters, banner exchange codes, unclickable text and, recip links, do nothing to make you money, why put them in a prime placement that could actually lose you a sale? It just doesnt make sense.

4. K.I.S.S

Keep It Simple Stupid. When using text, try to say what you need to as quickly and, as accurately as possible. This is also true when it comes to building your sites, cluttered or lengthy pages will lose the surfers attention a lot quicker than tidy, short pages (or ads) will. If you have to use a paragraph of text on one of your sites, do so but, make sure you highlight the important keywords in your text so they stand out more than the 'filler' text does.

5. Abuse can sell too.

'Sometimes' taking a negative approach with your marketing can have a positive effect on your sales, if you have a free site that isnt making sales although you are getting a heap of traffic, tell the surfer something like 'Hey Freeloader - Click Here To Get The Good Shit' I use this method regularly on high traffic, low converting sites and, whilst it doesnt have a dramatic increase in sales, it does have a positive effect on them. Sometimes turning a site that makes 1:1500 hits turn in to a 1:1000 sales ratio. Yes, the surfer is important to you but, at the same time, dont be afraid of telling them they are cheap, especially if they are costing you money!

6. Negative marketing.

Never be afraid of telling a surfer not to do something in order to make a sale. Let me explain, how often have you seen text on a site saying something like - Dont scroll past here - Now, how many times have you scrolled past that point? Likewise, if you tell a surfer not to click a link because it only has free porn there or, because it has nothing to interest them there, they will click the link, out of stubborness if nothing else.

7. Where to find marketing material.

Its happened to all of us at one point or another, the creative well dries up and we get stuck using the same text over, and over, and over again. When this happens take a look at some of the following sources to get a renewed source of marketing material; dating sites, read newspaper ads, online adult movie stores, radio shows, stories, porn magazines, adult chat rooms. I guarantee they will have a wealth of marketing text in them that you can implement on your sites if you think about what you are reading / watching.

In essence, how you market to your surfers is just as important as what you market to your surfers and, what your surfers are looking for, by using the same methods, day in, day out, you are actually doing yourself a dis-service, swap things around now and again and, experiment with your marketing, who knows, you might just find that by doing so, increases your monthly profits.

Article written by Lee.

http://www.webmasteradvertising.com