With increasing competition for visitors, a number of options are available for increasing traffic to your web site, but they come a cost. Is it worth it? Previously, I published an article on pay-per-view search engine options. This article can be viewed at:http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/payperview.htm.
Another popular ploy to encourage "eyeballs" (visitors) is to purchase site exit traffic. In this strategy, you pay a web site to redirect traffic to you when a visitor leaves their site. This usually occurs with a pop-up window. Is it effective? I guess
best way to answer this is with another question. How do you feel when you leave a site and 20 pop-up windows litter your screen? While utilising this strategy may increase page views according to your server logs, I don't think that you'll make many friends or encourage sales. This option is usually charged "per view" i.e, every time someone exits site involved, you are charged. I can think of better ways to spend your advertising budget.
Yet another strategy that marketing agencies may convince you to try is buying redirects from defunct sites, or from domain names owned by them. The domain names they own are usually generic terms, words that web surfers may type into their browser address bar in hope that they will find something of relevance. Some clever individuals and companies have made a great deal of money through this scheme. They buy thousands of domain names, preferrably those that have existing traffic and redirect those visitors to their customers. Unless domain name that traffic is redirected from is specific to your line of business, it will probably be "low quality" (visitors not interested in your product) and once again serve only to annoy internet surfers. Again, this promotion method will "appear" to be successful as your site will gain thousands of hits. But unless product you are offering has broad appeal, money you spend may not be justified.
Still one of best and most ethical ways of purchasing web site traffic is utilising pay-per-click options offered by many major search engines. It can be very expensive; so you will need to do your maths first in order to justify it. Most of these search engines require you to bid on key words or phrases that users type in. The highest bid gets highest ranking on search results and advertiser pays amount bid every time someone clicks on their link. In this option, you will want to be listed in first page of results in order to be noticed.
Some advertisers go overboard in their bidding. As an example, a search I carried out today on the term "computer" on Goto.com (now known as Overture.com) showed that no.1 advertiser has bid US$10 for privilege. The number 2 position was held by an advertiser prepared to pay US$.77 per click. It's a huge difference. Coupled with fact that not everyone who clicks on link will purchase, it becomes an extraordinarily expensive marketing exercise.
