Buying traffic for your website

Do you buy traffic for your website? There can be many ways to buy traffic such as buying adspace on other forums, paying for clicks/visits.

 

I don't, sometimes it can be quite expensive to get clicks. And these days, most people have AdBlock and can't even see it.

A free way to get results is to put the URL of your website/forum on a slip of paper. Then head over to the library and stick in a book. If you do it in popular manga (One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, etc.) you could put it in front of the ationy or suspenseful part. That way, it's where the reader's eyes are directed. I think it produces less results, but it's free. ^.^

 

I spent $150 on a Facebook ad for my old Michigan website. And I even narrowed it down to Michigan residents who like computers and internet. I got a few like but no new members, it was a total waste of money!

 

Sorry to hear, thats why I would never buy ads on Facebook. You are much better of with Google Adwords.

 

I have never spent money on buying visitors, this is like paying someone to do a job and soon as they get the money, they are done. If that makes sense as an example. It's like people click it and move on. Waste of good money to me.

 

This is the reason why I will never use Adwords. Buying "sponsor" ad spots is much better.

Did your forum have at where they could register using Facebook?

 

I would never buy traffic to your site, you either earn the traffic or your site/forum will not be successful

 

I haven't bought any advertisements for my community, but if I did, I'd use Project wonderful. Google adwords sounds nice to buy traffic/ads from, but I heard its quite expensive.

 

Yea Adwords is pretty expensive, I had plans for it but decided not to buy it, I much rather buy adspace on other forums in a similar niche.

 

If you dont target the right market its a total waste of money, otherwise it can work really well.

 

Ya, that's so true. You should always target your right market - that way you don't waste any money and it can be very effective.

 

I've never "bought traffic" like "1,000 hits for 10$" or something stupid like that and I wouldn't suggest anyone to do it.
I see some people that will buy traffic like that on a site for three months, or "paid posting" for a few months then try to sell the site with the traffic proof and never disclaiming that the traffic was face. (IMO)

There are plenty of ways to advertising your site..
I've used Adwords a few time and been very happy with it, I've also had success with facebook advertising as well.

 

Adwords and Facebook are really good advertising platforms. Facebook especially, because you have them as fans, and they will follow every thread or post you make.

 

I never buy traffic, I prefer promoting myself, it's hard work, but it is much more rewarding unless you have very deep pockets.

 

I agree 100%. I don't buy traffic for my website. I don't see the point. If you're paying someone to generate 'traffic' for you, it's not real 'traffic' and it's not really guaranteed to bring you any members or further income. It'd only be good if you're filthy rich and have money to burn and want your site to really get out there. Then sure why not.....but generally, i find old fashion promoting the best solution thus far. :-)

 

I don't buy traffic. I work on the site, trying to make it the best i can so that people would join and return there. I link to it from my sites and post in blogs/forums. Even a small initial traffic helps, as long as the site looks good and enticing. I could pay thousands of dollars to get traffic, but, if my visitors don't see a reason to join, I'm just wasting money.

 

I'd say purchasing ads from Google and Facebook are a waste of money unless it's a huge amount.

 

Oh man that couldn't be farther from the truth.
You can defiantly start off small on both those platforms and see results.
As with a larger fund, you need to know what your doing and spend your money wisely.

 

I recently experimented with Adwords for GeeksChat.net using a freebie voucher someone kindly donated (value of around £67 / $102).

I setup three ads and added around 10 keywords/phrases that I thought would be useful in attracting like-minded geeks and set them running. Well, sort of. The click value I'd assigned to them all was apparently too low and I had to increase it 5 fold to get any of them off the starting blocks. I also aimed all the ads at the homepage - okay for starters, but it didn't contain the density of keywords needed for a good quality ad score so if I did it again I'd create custom landing pages for each specific advert to make them more relevant.

I capped the spend at £7 per day and got through it very (and I mean very) quickly each day. It is amazing how many impressions Google can serve in an hour, never mind a day. I reckon you could blow thousands of pounds in a day if you really wanted to!!!

I got an average of around 37 clicks per day until the balance on the account was exhausted and didn't get a single conversion from the exercise (I'd put the conversion tracking code on the post-registration template in XF so I'd know if a sign-up was a result of the ads).

I enjoyed trying it and feel I've learned something from the experience. The Adwords interface offers amazingly finite tracking and targetting variables and I expect if you've got a big budget and some time to learn how to use it properly it can be a very powerful tool. Landing pages seem very important too, so bear that in mind if you give it a go yourself.

I didn't have any high expectations because I know GeeksChat is low traffic/content at the moment - if I'd aimed it at cyclists and pointed the ads at CycleChat.net I might have had a better result - but I'm not too bothered as I got a good lesson in Adwords and it didn't cost me anything.

If I had the money to advertise I'd certainly think about including some Adwords campaigns in my strategy, but I also think it would be a fairly expensive learning curve to begin with.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

There is a certain pitfall people fall into with this.

When you buy traffic, sure it makes your site look busy. But unless you're using other methods as well, once the money stops, so will your site.

Not to mention then you also have to constantly worry about the quality of your content because there will be people there only to get paid.