Firstly I would like to congratulate V Parker on his informative post at
http://talk.ws/index.php?topic=13609.0 on how to write a classified ad. this is really good info folks.
Secondly I want to address the issue which a lot of people have problems with lately; Quality score when trying to use Google Adwords to advertise your GDI business.
As Google does not want to lead people to duplicate content affiliate sales pages they will most likely not accept your advertising if it directs them to a GDI sales page.
There is a cure for this but as I can't place a link to this free information here please PM me via the private message icon at the left of this post.
The other problem with using Google Adwords to try to recruit people into GDI: Unless you have a high ticket up sell item, Google Adwords is just too expensive.
So where is the best place to advertise your GDI business.
From my own experience [others may differ] all free advertising like FFA [Free For All], free classifieds, free banner ad exchanges, click exchanges, auto submit to search engines etc., is a total waste of time.
Now I have created a "Free Website Traffic" product that solves the problem for those of you wanting to get consistent good converting traffic to your sites - but I am not discussing traffic generation methods here -as that is only for people who have already created their own websites.
The fact is - if you are treating GDI as a business then like any business you need to set aside an advertising budget. Free Traffic Generation methods work - free advertising does not.
So where is the best and most economical place to advertise?
Well we all know that Google Adwords works really well - so why not copy their formula and cut out the middle man - in this case Google.
In reality this is already being done all over the internet and it works really well.
Just find any site online with a good amount of traffic and ask the webmaster to place your ad on his/her site.
Make sure you select a site with not too many ads running on it already and definately no Google Adwords, Info links, AdBright or any third party ads that may run in direct competition with your ad.
This is just like advertising an off line business in a magazine/ newspaper you would buy in your local newsagency.
The only difference is that the advertising fees are a lot cheaper on websites than in hard copy media. [for now at least].
Provide the webmaster with your ad copy and ask that it be placed above the fold [ that is the part of the page that is visible without having to scroll the page.]
Try to get the ad to run for at least one year [ a lot cheaper that way.]
Now lets look at the exposure you get compared to Google Adwords.
If you paid an average of 0.60 cents a click to Google and only 1% of visitors to a site clicked on your ad that means they would have to display your ad 1000 times to get 10 clicks.
So on average you would pay $6 for every 10 visitors to your GDI offer.
Whereas if you ran an ad for let's say $200 per year on a site that gets around 500 views per day = 182,500 per year and 1% of those visitors clicked on your ad as in the example above = 1825 clicks.
To advertise through Google Adwords would cost you 1825 x 0.60cents = $1095
Placing an ad privately would cost you $200 that is a saving of $895 in advertising costs and on top of that you do not have to pass any quality scores or jump through any Google Adwords hoops.
Remember Google is just an agent working between you and the webmaster that runs ads on his/her site. By cutting out the agent you get the same advertising at a much cheaper rate.
The only drawback is the work involved in finding the right sites - then contacting the webmaster to make an advertising deal. Not much of a drawback when you consider the savings.
If you want a free list of websites currently offering advertising space please PM me and I will send you the information.
Hope this info helps,
Cheers and a Happy New Year to everyone.
Kitty.
