There are many types of affordable advertising and website promotion services that you can find online. For the cost conscious website promoter banner advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertising and autosurf or webpage exchange programs might seem to be a good option. We are all aware by now that banner advertising has lost its effectiveness. PPC search engine advertising is only worthwhile in a few of the larger engines such as Overture or Findwhat. But what about the webpage exchanges and autosurf programs?
This form of advertising takes many forms and you need to make sure that you understand the details of the program before you get involved. In general, autosurf or webpage exchange programs will give you 100-10,000 free credits to join. This is good. It means that you can potentially reach 10,000 new customers. Not so fast. There is a catch. Since most sites offering these specials are just starting out and they are looking to get more people in their program, your 10,000 page views might be seen by only 50-200 people. Of those people, my impression is that more than half of the users minimize the screen and will not see your webpage.
At any rate, after your initial credit, you do have four options. You can:
- 1) cancel your account,
2) purchase additional credits,
3) advertise your referral link to be rewarded with additional credits
4) surf the existing sites to earn credits for additional exposure of your site.
Depending on the program, when surfing the existing sites, you can receive anywhere from 0.5 to 1 credit per site viewed. The sites are usually displayed every 10-20 seconds. So it can take some time to earn a significant amount of credit.
See the catch? To get your site seen, you need to advertise the autosurf program or purchase additional credits. So, are the programs worth the hassle? I would say yes and no. If you are on a very tight budget, all the free advertising you can get helps you to get your name out to the public. However, people that join these programs are looking for the same thing. Specifically, they want you to view and/or purchase the product or service that they are promoting. Another drawback is that your site is displayed so frequently that you need to make sure your bandwidth is sufficient to handle the traffic.
It is common to find auctions promising 1000 to one million guaranteed visitors to your website for very affordable prices. Many of these auctions use webpage exchanges or autosurf programs to deliver visitors.
In closing, free-to-join autosurf programs do not require that you to place an html code on your site and they give you free exposure for your site with little effort. It’s probably worth joining an established program with hundreds or thousands of members to get free exposure for your website. If you see any results, then you can promote the program by adding a link to your webpage, surf for credits or purchase additional credits.
Dr. LaBuda is owner and operator of MagicEbid, magicbid a webmaster resource center and advertising auction and Whybidmore Collectible Auction, http://www.whybidmore.com
