Surfing For Success

Do start page and surfing type programs work?
The key question here is, what are you trying
to accomplish?

If you are using them to try and make sales,
the results can be quite discouraging. If
you are using them to sign up new subscribers
for your ezine or newsletter, your results can
actually be surprisingly good.

Most people who are surfing for hits, are
not interested in buying anything. Their main
purpose is to create more hits for their own
website.

So this being the case, how does one grab their
attention? You have to make them an offer that
can benefit them. I'm not talking about giving
them a 50% discount on your best product. Give
them something with no strings attached, except
to give you their email address.

Some things that work well are free ebooks,
free marketing courses or anything else that
might benefit the surfer.

There are different approaches to making these
offers. You can take the visitor straight to a
page on your site that offers free ebooks or
marketing courses and get the email address in
exchange.

That method can produce quite well but I like
to give them more than one chance to sign up.

Send them to the page on your website that
provides good quality information. This page,
like every page on your site, should give them
the opportunity to sign up for your ezine,
newsletter or whatever it is you provide.

I personally use a marketing resource links
page. It provides information. It is a site
that can be useful over and over, so they may
want to bookmark it. It is not a page trying
to sell them on anything, just a helpful page.

Here is the page I use quite often for this
purpose. You can get an idea of what I mean.

http://www.moneyforhire.com/marketingresources

This will not only give you a chance at getting
an email address but might get a return visitor
as well.

You can get a second chance by putting an exit
pop-up on this page. I know, you hate them and
supposedly everyone else hates them. The fact is,
using a pop-up in the right manner, can be one of
the most important marketing moves you make.

People's irritation with pop-ups comes from sites
that use multiple pop-ups and sites trying to
cram a sale down your throat.

Give something away. You will be amazed at the
people who suddenly start checking out your
pop-ups. Offer a free ebook or marketing course
in exchange for signing up for your newsletter
or ezine.

Using this method for your start page and surfing
programs, can provide you with a number of future
customers.

If used correctly, these programs can be quite
beneficial. Like anything else, used incorrectly,
they are a waste of time.

That couple of minutes it takes to sign up for
a hundred hits, can be well worth it when you
use them correctly.