How effective is online advertising?

[Don]

Not only how effective advertising is for you but how much advertising do you use to promote your sites? Also, what types of advertising do you use, or do you rely entirely on SEO?

[Engineer]

I rely entirely on SEO. So far, it's worked well for me.

[matted]

This is a tricky question. I do mostly SEO because of the cost. I had some success with a banner campaign here or there and adwords before the gambling ban. I think a talented advertiser willing to invest in quality ad placement can make it work.

[PokerAddictz]

I am very new to all of this SEO stuff. Does anyone have suggestions on where the best place to find information about it is?

Thanks in advance.

[TheGooner]

I don't pay to advertise ANYWHERE. I'm always amazed at the inflated prices charged for poorly trafficked links on PR 4 PR5 PR 6 (etc).

I rely on my content to provide traffic via SEO, word of mouth, and click of links.

[aksana]

SEO, SEO and SEO.

[MichaelCorfman]

Casino City relies primarily on SEO activities. However, we do get traffic through links others have placed on their sites (almost always links initiated by others because they like our content since we don't actively solicit link exchanges). We also get traffic through publicity. For example, we sometimes issue press releases, and I sometimes write articles published in magazines.

Michael

[AussieDave]

Organic SERPs are the best by far. These days, I believe most net user realise that these are likely to yield far better results than paid listings.

In their day, PPC's were good for me, their ROI was well worth the investment.

I also try to brand (market my sites well), as Michael made comment to, having people know your site, produces good results. I think this is especially relevant these days.

How you go about putting that into practice, is dependant, I feel, on the niche your aiming for.

Banners and what not, can be affective, but, again just throwing them up Willy Nilly is a waste of time IMHO.

Reiterating, it's about how you approach it, that I think makes the BIG difference.



Cheers



Dave

Edit: Wanted to add, that for webmasters starting out, gaining decent SERPs takes time. Instead of trying to obtain top 10 placements for highly competitive keywords/phrases and becoming jaded from no results, I'd recommend targeting less competitive search terms. Least with these you stand some chance of getting decent listings.

Always think about the sites you trade recip links with. No one knows your site better than you...So keep that in mind and try to swap links with sites that will complement your site's content. Just don't swap links for the sake of swapping links.

However, always remember the key aspects of success...Always use original content and avoid generic ad copies.

[bb1web]

Hi all (Dave),

while I'm rather certain your advice is ... absolutely correct in the aspects of SEO .. I disagree with this post in respect to OTHER than gambling-related searches

These days, I believe most net user realise that these are likely to yield far better results than paid listings.

reason for my answer:

If you're searching for something that costs money ... go with a company willing to spend some to get their ads seen.

seeking SEO results has in my experience often resulted in lesser quality..... definitely lesser customer service ..... than when I chose paid listings.

I mention this because I'd suggest it strongly IF anybody is choosing ....... say to find a "widget" online.

Go with the company you know you'll be able to find next week advertising in the same spot. Just saying my experience in such matters has led me to think this way strongly.

[AussieDave]

Hi bbw,

Probably should have made it clearer, I was speaking purely from a gambling/casino point of view.

Thanks for pointing that out though...

As an example...do a search for say "casino strategies" on google...

The paid listings IMHO are simply out to jag suckers...Where as the organic SERPS are likely to contain the exact information that was searched for.

Although I tend to agree with you, I'm finding of late, more and more tricksters are using paid submissions in main stream searches to catch the unaware.

IMHO these type of listing @ least in our industry have caused a lot of people to tar us all with the same brush...I guess its cousin would be the casino Spammers for instance; not forgetting the damage that gator & adware did also...


Cheers



Dave

[Don]

PokerAddictz, these links may have the info you're looking for.
Check out their articles and tools, experiment with your own site....

http://www.sitepronews.com/
http://www.seomoz.org/
http://www.gorank.com/
http://www.webceo.com/
http://www.w-edge.com/articles/highrank.htm

[bb1web]

Hi again all (Dave),

no I think you and I were running along the same path ... (thus why I said aside gambling ads)


I just said that in hopes of maybe saving someone here from choosing the natural results when searching for "other than gambling" such as widgets.

in that case .... ya I strongly advise going with a company that pays to be there.

and btw: I'm one of those shysters who uses paid ads to get traffic but as I charge for an ebook about slots ...... I refund every single dime to readers and then send them a link ..... costs me about $1 to $1.55 to do this ..... not incuding the traffic that DOESN"T produce a "buy". ...... which I'm sad to report in my case ..... is considerable lol.

That said: those that do "buy" ... feel they got a great deal as their money is refunded and they get what they were willing to pay to get ... for free.

it IS working .... but its not an easy hill to climb. *wish I'd learned SEO a long time ago. lol.

edited to add: all that said: what hurts is going to such extremes and then not having a way for players to deposit/get paid that is reliable. My current concerns and what is holding me back is not the buying such ads . ...... but rather waiting for reliable banking solution to show up on the horizon.

[donnajyc]

If you're searching for something that costs money ... go with a company willing to spend some to get their ads seen.

I suppose it depends on what you're looking for. I rarely click paid advertisers on search engines because they rarely have I'm looking for. The problem with paid links is they have the option to target any audience, not just those seeking what they have to offer. You ever notice ebay gets a result 99% of the time no matter what you search for? To test this theory, I'll go to Google and search for "cheap talk". Yep there it is, I can buy cheap talk for less at e-bay.com! LOL

Then again, maybe someone really is trying to sell cheap talk on e-bay.. you ever go to ebay and search for belly button lint? Don't laugh, I'm not kidding There are people selling their own belly button lint on e-bay

[WinYourWayKyle]

SEO all the way. Also, I would find by being an avid poster in some major "gambling" forums is a good way to brand your sites, by having it in your signature. Not so much by getting clicks from it, but people reading your posts and finding out who is running these sites....Just a thought....

[Enke]

SEO is definitely the way to go now days. Even if you purchase banner space on a high traffic website, the fact is that most savvy web surfers have "banner blindness". I would never, and I repeat ever buy advertising based on impressions either. (Not to say I haven't tried it before)

But usually you will get very poor ROI if paying simply for impressions.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can buy up as much advertising or drive as much traffic as humanly possible via SEO, but if your sites content is bad, it still won't convert. Unfortunately the days of having a simple banner farm and watching the sign-ups roll in is behind us.

One of my most successful media buys was a few years ago when I bought advertising on a penny stock trading forum. These were gamblers by nature and the thought of online poker was still somewhat new.

Buying online advertising and getting solid returns is actually a science in itself. Think about it......if your top banner spot was yielding you $2000+ a month in CPA's, would you sell that spot for $1000? Probably not, think about this when buying online ad space. That space is probably not worth more to them per month than it is being sold for. You better have a catchy ad, and a great page for visitors to arrive at.