Build It & They Will Come!

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Build It & They Will Come!

By Terry Delosh

How many times have read? Put your business in front of 60 million people, build a home page, buy a home page and they will knock your doors down. Folks, I have to let you know that people selling you this are selling you hype. Not unlike mailorder, internet sites take marketing to get people to the site. This article will deal with the aspect of banner ads as one phase of the marketing process to help bring traffic to your site.

True, the internet is alive and bustling with business. However, just because you put up a web page don't expect that is the total answer to your marketing efforts online. No, my friends there is alot more not being told to you then what is being sold to you. This method is just one of many ways to promote your site, however an effective one if used correctly to help start building your traffic count.

Personally , Let me say this....you need to understand that putting up pages won't make you an overnight success. If you are in a home business and use mailorder as a way of doing business, then the internet is a great way to supplement your efforts to building your customer base. I publish a sweepstakes newsletter and have done so for 5 years. I put my pages up in April of 1997 to supplement my newsletter for my many subscribers who are online and to introduce myself to new people. Learning immediately that people didn't flock to my site, I started to look at banners as a way to introduce new people to our site.

First off, you can build a page, you can have a page built for you, or you can rent space in a mall doesn't matter how you get there but I do agree that you should be on the web and get your business there. However, you must market your efforts to make them successful.

Just what am I talking about you might ask? First off, true enough there are 60 million people out there but the most important aspect is don't get lost in the crowd. With all those people and all the pages out there, how do you get them to your site? There are many lonely sites out there on the web and perhaps you have one of them. I have built a steady stream of traffic to my pages and share this information with you to help you.

One very successful technique of getting people to your site is the use of banner advertising. Banners can be seen on many webpages. You can buy banner space or you can exchange banners. You can also host banners. How do you get started you may ask?

There are several banner networks on the internet and the ones I mention here are just a few of them. They include Link Exchange, Trade Banners, and Paramount Banner network. You join these exchanges and post the html they give you on your page or pages . In exchange they will post your banner on a rotating basis on other websites. Of course you have to have traffic to build credit to earn showings of your banners on other sites.

But, Terry I don't have a banner you say? This is not usually a problem, once you join the network they have normally have a list of people who will make you a banner. Yes, that is right they will design a banner at no cost for you to submit to the exchanges. Great way to build traffic is have a banner built that is short and to the point. One that creates interest. Just take a look at the many many banners on the internet for ideas. Check out pages that deal in similar products to yours and you will get ideas on how to put your banner together. Here are the addresses of banner exchanges that we work with , you of course can locate others simply by searching them out and a little research.

Link Exchange: http://www.linkexchange.com
Trade Banners: http://resource-marketing.com
Paramount : http://www.jeopardypro.com/paramount/

To learn about each banner exchange network simply go to the addresses and read the member information and if they interest you join up, you will receive a membership number and account.

What about building your own banner you may ask? Well I have a couple of places you can actually build your own banner. Here you can build them quite easily and then load them into your directory for display. I have used these services to build banners for my products or services! You can get them done instantly, select the colors of your choice and generally rework them til you find them satisfactory. You will also find more information on banner building at these services to help you along.

Banner Generator: http://www.coder.com
Creative Connectivity http://www.crecon.com/banners.html

Does your site have enough traffic to warrant hosting banners and getting paid for hosting them? If so, you may want to check out Safe Audit. There are others but this service is one of the most popular out there and has a good system to select a banner or banners to host and get paid by the click through or order. I personally have started using this service and although you won't make alot of money doing this, you will make a few dollars and you can choose the banners you want to host. It is a good way to generate a few dollars. Keep in mind you need to have enough traffic on your site to make money doing this. Also Safe Banner will host your product on other sites and you pay a commission for each order that is sold through Safe Audit.

Safe Banner Audit: http://www.safe-audit.com/

Internet marketing offers an exciting opportunity to introduce people to your products or services. Banners is only one way of bringing traffic to your site and a great way to get your site advertised on other sites by the use of exchange. I recommend using banners to bring new traffic to your site. My site has steadily grown each month and in September our home page took over 8,000 hits on just the home page.

I hope this banner article has given you some ideas of how to get started and use banners to build traffic to your site. Of course, this in itself is not the magic marketing solution only one of many steps you will need to take to build traffic to your site. I have a series of other methods which I will present over the coming months for you to learn more on marketing your site on the internet.

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Mr. Delosh publishes "Sweeping the USA" monthly sweepstakes newsletter You can also email him at delosh@slic.com or visit his website at: http://members.tripod.com/~TDelosh/index.html

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Tags: E-commerce and Internet