The Top 10 Time
Wasting Pursuits of Internet Marketing and How To Avoid Them
All of us get sucked into
at least one useless marketing strategy or time wasting activity
during our career. For many of us it is more than one…..and for
me it was just about all of them! I have compiled a list of the
top 10 time wasting strategies and activities Internet marketers
are guilty of and a tip on how to avoid each of them.
Read on and see how many
of these do you do?
PART 1 – Time Wasting Internet
Marketing Strategies
In this article I focus
on the top 5 time wasting and ineffective marketing strategies used
by Internet marketers. I expect a few people will be down right
peeved I’m revealing these secrets but I want to save you from doing
what I did.
1.
Submitting to FFA classifieds – (A.K.A. free for all classifieds) worked once but now there are
hundreds of thousands of them. The idea is you post your classified
ad free to attract visitors and/or sales. Unfortunately, nobody
ever reads FFA’s and each receives so many submissions that your
ad gets pushed to the bottom and then of the page very fast. And
every FFA you submit to will send you at least one email.
Outcome: an inbox full of junk mail with no noticeably
increase in sales, down line or traffic.
Solution: don’t do it. If you want to post free classified,
find reputable ezines that accept free advertising.
2.
Owning an FFA classified – some
schemes promising to get you an avalanche of free traffic and leads
offer to give you your very own FFA. Only this time you’ve been
let in on the secret that no one reads FFA’s but they are really
just a ploy to collect the email addresses of advertisers. Unfortunately,
the people submitting the ads are told to use throw away email addresses,
which means the addresses you collect will be worthless anyway.
Outcome: a long list of worthless email addresses.
Solution: don’t do it.
3.
Submitting to FFA link pages – like FFA classifieds, FFA link pages worked once but not any more.
The idea is they will provide a link to your site and if you link
back to them or pay a fee they will give your link greater prominence.
They were once a good way to increase link popularity in search
engines but now search engines are wise to this strategy and will
even penalize you if you link back to them.
Outcome: maybe a better incoming link rating but
don’t reciprocate the link or the search engines will PUNISH you.
Solution: don’t do it or don’t reciprocate if you
do. If you really want links, contact webmasters of related sites
individually and invite them to swap with you. Read
reciprocal link exchange directory.
4.
Safelists – for me these are
yet another waste of time. The idea is you become a member of a
website that allows you to send emails to other members. In return
you agree to receive emails from them. You also have the option
of paying for a “pro” membership, which allows you to send but not
receive. You end up with an inbox jammed packed with junk mail (if
you are like I was you may read the first one or two before deleting
them all) and you waste your time writing and sending emails that
no one ever reads.
Outcome: an inbox full of junk mail.
Solution: don’t do it. If you want email addresses,
start your own newsletter instead. Get yourself an autoresponder
, and go from there.
5.
Auto Traffic Exchange – every
new webmaster longs to see their hit counter tick over. Auto traffic
exchanges give you one free hit to your website for every one or
two websites, owned by someone else, that you view. Unlike the regular
traffic exchanges that require you to stay in front of the screen
and click a button to view the next site, auto exchanges automatically
bring the next site onto your screen whether your in front of it
or on the toilet. Most people will turn it on and then go to bed,
watch TV or do something else.
Outcome: a hit counter with heaps of hits but nothing
else.
Solution: don’t do it. There is only one traffic
exchange that is worth your time. In fact I actually recommend people
use it because it can be a great source of qualified traffic. I
should know because at one time I was a member of (are you ready
for it) 22 different traffic exchanges, talk about serious time
wasting! Anyway, with the agreement of every other person who knows
what they are talking about, the best one is Traffic
Swarm
In part 2 I will discuss
the top 5 time wasting activities (not marketing strategies) of
Internet marketers. Read it and save another 250 hours of your valuable.
Part 2 - Time Wasting Internet Marketing Activities
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