Mistakes in Advertising

By Eric Coons
Posted Monday, August 9, 2004

I wanted the quickest easiest way to get people to come to my new super hyped website. After all, it was the best site on the internet, because I had so painstakingly toiled over the layout and graphics for weeks. I was positive that all people needed was to see this site, and they would pull out their wallets and shower me in heaps of electronic cash transfers. I just had to get them to see the site.

Get 100,000 visitors to your website!
Or something along those lines. I couldn’t wait. If 100,000 people saw my website, and only half of them bought. (Like I said I was new) I would be filthy stinking rich. I signed up. The way this program worked was: I had to switch my internet start page from my normal convenient search engine, over to some convoluted, ad laden site that was next to impossible to navigate. All I had to do was look at a couple of other sites every day in order to build up credits, so that my site could be placed on the convoluted web site so that other people could view it. What a great idea!

Getting Started
I started easy, every time I opened my browser, I would click on a site or two. After about 4 days, I started to see referrals from this program show up in my logs. I got excited. I became obsessed with clicking on the other links on the convoluted page. I would sit for hours clicking on a link, and then immediately clicking the back button and clicking on another link, in order to build up credits so my beautiful site could be seen! And it was seen! Over and over again and every visit was for about 1 second.

The Epiphany
I came to the realization that every webmaster using that system had the best site on the internet, and they were positive that all people needed was to see their site, and they would pull out their wallets and shower them in heaps of electronic cash transfers. So, They just continuously clicked on the links on the convoluted page to get their credits up that others might see their page.

The Regret
This is just one example of many mistakes I have made and time I have wasted when it comes to website promotion. I am a very emotional person, and tend to get caught up in a good sales pitch. If I would have just stuck to the basics and used the time wasted on adding content to my site, or building my resource base. Imagine how much further ahead I would have been in getting listed in the major search engines. Imagine how many more legitimate visitors I would have had from the links I could have been creating.

The Hope
My hope for you, the webmaster just starting your web promotion journey, and for you, the link weary webmaster that just wants to scream if they see another ADD YOUR URL form, is that you will stick to the basics. Try to keep your blinders on when surfing past those promises for unlimited traffic, and $900/ day for doing nothing, and keep on promoting your site using the promotion tactics that work, because they do work.

About the Author
Eric Coons has been involved with computers and has been designing websites since the early 1990’s. He is the webmaster of Winkingpig Webmaster Resources. This Article may be copied in its entirety only, and must contain this author block.