Online Promotion: "Hey! Where's My Ad?"

"Hey! Where's My Ad?"

Written by Peg Bastin

Have you ever wondered why you didn't see repparttar

free ad you submitted? I bet you thought you had repparttar 125060

perfect ad! Why isn't it there? Well, let me give you some idea of why newsletter publishers get gray hair!

You MUST follow repparttar 125061 guidelines. Guidelines? What's that mean? Is that like RULES? YES!

There is only so much space available for advertising in a newsletter. To accommodate as many free ads as possible there are limits on ad size.

Let's take a look at some of these guidelines:

1. Spelling and typing errors.

If you want to be believable, check your ad for proper spelling and typing errors. Use capital letters at repparttar 125062 beginning of sentences, not through repparttar 125063 whole ad. Don't use all caps as it makes your ad hard to read, and reminds me of salespeople yelling at me to buy their product. Not likely!

2. Making your links clickable.

URL's must begin with http:// and email addresses with mailto: in order to be 'clickable.' If readers can't just click on your URL or email address to see your offer, you will lose their attention. Most are too lazy to 'cut and paste' your URL into their browser window. Make it easy for them to view your offer.

3. Formatting your ad.

When you get to repparttar 125064 end of your 60 or 65 character line - you do a 'hard return' (for you Newbie's - that means you hit repparttar 125065 Enter key) to go on to repparttar 125066 next line of your ad. This 'hard return' will keep repparttar 125067 lines from running all repparttar 125068 way across repparttar 125069 page, which repparttar 125070 publisher must take repparttar 125071 time to correct. 4. Characters per line. The most popular choice is 60 to 65 characters per line. Some list servers can only accept a certain number of letters per line. If your ad exceeds this limit, it will not look repparttar 125072 same as you typed it. It will be one long line and a one word line, then another long line and so on.

SO I'VE GOT A WEB SITE - NOW WHAT?

Written by P J Chandler

SO I'VE GOT A WEB SITE - NOW WHAT?

by P J Chandler

Yesterday I was talking to repparttar owner/editor of a local magazine that has just ceased publication. When I asked what caused her to pull repparttar 125059 plug, she told me that advertising revenue had fallen off lately. The commonest excuse given by local businesses when she approached them for advertising space was, "We don't need to advertise because we have a web site!"

Setting up a web site is a lot like opening a shop in an unfashionable suburb of a small town in repparttar 125060 middle of a desert. Unless you tell people about it and give them a good reason to call by, nobody is going to find you except by accident. If you operate a business that has anything less than a worldwide reach, one thing you almost certainly need to do it to advertise in appropriate paper media - if only to let people know where to find your web site.

How else will people find you? Search engine results are only as good as repparttar 125061 search terms entered: typically, they return thousands of pages, many irrelevant and few surfers follow up on any beyond repparttar 125062 first 20 or so. Despite repparttar 125063 claims of some site promotion agencies, it is often impossible to position your site anywhere near repparttar 125064 top of repparttar 125065 list unless you are dealing in a product or service so obscure that you have little competition.

Small businesses are often persuaded by web design companies to put up a site that merely gives contact details and a rough idea of what repparttar 125066 company does. This is fine if all you want is repparttar 125067 equivalent of a Yellow Pages listing, but can you be sure that real live potential customers will find your site among repparttar 125068 proliferation of others that inhabit repparttar 125069 darker corners of repparttar 125070 web?

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