May 08 2009

Are Website Traffic Boosting Services Legit?

Filed under: Search Marketing » Traffic Building,
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Traffic Services - Bogus or for Real?

There are many services out there using so-called "publisher networks" that offer to send you x number of visitors for your dollar. They do this by displaying ads that link to your site. These could be on-page ads, pop-ups, or the currently more popular "pop-under" (a page that opens as a new tab or window).

Do Traffic Services Work?

The problem with all these services is that

  1. Most traffic hits your sites and leaves again with no prolonged interest, and
  2. These traffic services have a "flash bang" effect (one-time) as opposed to the long-term (if smaller volume) effect of high-quality, repeat traffic established from quality links and referrals.

What Would You Click On?

Just ask yourself how many quality sites you've found by clicking on "pop-ups" or "pop-unders." I find quality sites with the following methods, listed in order of decreasing importance:

  • Search Engines
  • Referrals (suggestions, links, etc.) from friends, etc.
  • Relevant Ads

I'll click on an ad if I think it's relevant and something I'm looking for. Online advertising is paid for after all, and the sites paying money for you to see their product must be spending that money for a reason (ie. they believe in their product or service).

How Traffic Services Profit

Are traffic services profitable? We wouldn't be seeing more and more of them popping up if it didn't. They make money off margins - usually on the same site there will be links for "publishers" as well as customers they are targeting to "buy links." They buy ad-space on a publisher's site for x amount of money per x thousand impressions, or unique visitors. They then turn around and sell this "advertising space" to you (the traffic buyer) at a slightly higher cost. They are the middleman, and as long as people give their service just one try, they will profit from the conversion.

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Traffic boosting the white hat way

The way to legitimately boost traffic to your site is to 1) use organic search, and 2) use the proceeds from Adsense to fund an Adwords campaign. It's simply folks - you put in the time and the people will come.

Believing in their products?

Great article. I personally think traffic boosting services are a massive scam. There's got to be a reason that search engines are constantly dumping sites that take advantage of these services.

One thing that struck me in your article is when you say that the traffic boosting services that spend money on online advertising must do so because they believe in their product or service. That may be the case, but I can guarantee you there are people advertising on, for example, Adwords, that are offering up a bogus product. The only thing they believe in is the profits they rake in off those of us unfortunate enough to fall for their scam.

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