Many people are confused by the different types of advertising techniques online. In today’s blog post, my aim is to classify all the techniques into 5 main types. I will also discuss the key to success in each of them.

Ready? Here we go……

1) Content Advertising

The first type of advertising technique is content advertising. It basically uses content to draw visitors’ attention. It is the main type of advertising technique because the entire internet is made up of content (or information).

The following traffic strategies all fall under content advertising technique:

- Submitting articles to article directories
- Posting articles to Squidoo, Hubpages or Blogger
- Posting articles to your own blog or content website
- Press release
- Paid reviews at other people’s website
- Yahoo answers
- Social bookmarking at Digg, Propeller etc
- Post videos in video sites
- Posting comments in forums

In content advertising, you draw traffic from 2 sources. You either get the traffic from the website where the content is posted or from the search engine.

Existing traffic from the website is given. There is nothing much you need to do other than making sure that your content is good and your title is interesting.

The real challenge lies in getting traffic from the search engine. Your aim is to get high ranking in the search engine and direct the traffic from the search engine to your content and then to your website. This is done through careful keyword research and search engine optimization.

2) Link Advertising

This type of advertising technique typically uses a short link with some description to attract the visitors directly to your website.

The following traffic strategies all fall under link advertising technique:

- PPC advertising
- leadsleap advertising
- Classified advertising
- Submission to directories
- Link exchange partnership
- Banner advertising (image version of link advertising)
- Craigslist advertising
- Email signature

In link advertising, you draw traffic from just 1 source, that is the existing traffic from the website where your link is posted.

The key in link advertising is your OFFER.

Many advertisers expect people to click on whatever link they post. When no one clicks, they wonder why people are not responding.

Remember, people are NOT AT ALL interested in your ad. They are only interested in how they can benefit. If your ad fails to convey the idea that you have something good for them, they simply won’t click!

3) Viral advertising

This kind of advertising technique is similar to word of mouth advertising in the offline world. The idea is to encourage your existing traffic to bring more traffic to your website.

The following traffic strategies all fall under viral advertising technique:

- Offer your products’ affiliate program, including finding joint venture partners
- Place a “Tell-a-friend” script on your website
- Distribute viral screensaver, software or ebooks

Success in viral advertising depends a lot on your ability to create a buzz in your community. You need to package your product into something that is unique and interesting so that people are interested in spreading the words for you. Viral advertising can hardly work for a “me-too” product.

4) Incentivized advertising

The forth type of advertising technique is incentivized advertising where the traffic is rewarded to visit your website.

The following traffic strategies all fall under incentivized advertising technique:

- Traffic exchange programs
- Auto-surf advertising
- Paid to read advertising
- Safelist advertising

Success in this type of advertising depends mainly on your offer and the way you present it. Most advertisers who fail either do not have a good offer or they fail to deliver the benefit of their offer across to the target audience.

5) Obtrusive advertising

The last type of advertising technique is obtrusive advertising where the traffic is forced to view your ad. The most typical examples are popup and popunder advertising.

The first rule in obtrusive advertising is to avoid untargeted traffic, which happens to be quite common in this kind of advertising. If your ad is shown to a pool of people who are not interested in your offer, you are simply barking up the wrong tree!

If the traffic is targeted, your success in obtrusive advertising depends mainly on your offer and the way you present it, similar to incentivized advertising.

Final note……

As you can see, online advertising is not as complicated as what it seems to be. I hope that by understanding the main types of advertising techniques, you can be better prepare your advertising campaign. All the best!

Helping you to increase your web site traffic has always been my top priority and today, I’m going to share with you my best kept secrets to increase web site traffic from scratch.

Like many of you, I started my career in internet marketing with little knowledge, no JV partner, no internet marketing friend and I didn’t pay thousands of dollars to attend any seminar on internet marketing. I started from scratch, learning the ropes by reading tons of ebooks and email newsletters (blog wasn’t popular when I started online).

So I believe whatever web site traffic strategy that works for me will work for you.

My Most Important Web Site Traffic Strategy

My most important web site traffic strategy is viral marketing.

Viral marketing is a huge topic by itself and it encompasses many different strategies, including viral ebook, viral software, affiliate program, tell-a-friend system and even list building.

Before I even start thinking about the details of any new web site, the first question I will ask myself is “How can I multiply my initial traffic into more traffic?” If I can’t get a good answer to this question, I will not build the web site at all. (Clarification: I’m referring to mega web sites like leadsleap, not those little Adsense or affiliate web sites that rely on search engine traffic.)

The whole idea of viral marketing is that you want people to tell other people about your website.

You may think all you need is an affiliate program. If you do, you are dead wrong! Just because you are having an affiliate program doesn’t mean that people will start spreading the words. In most cases, they won’t!

The key in viral marketing is to create a buzz in the community. You need to position your new web site in such a way that there is some novelty in it, something that will make people say “Hey, it sounds interesting” or “Hey, this is something new”. If you can do that, together with a good supporting system such as an affiliate program, your web site will spread like wild fire.

Next, You Need Web Site Traffic Starter

I derive the term Traffic Starter from Fire Starter. When you set up a fire, you need fire starters. Similarly, if you want  your website to spread like wild fire, you need a traffic starter, which is the initial traffic to your website.

Can you imagine what will happen if you burn lots of fire starters but you fail to put some charcoal around them? Yes, you get some initial fire but it soon dies.

In the case of web site traffic, the charcoal is the viral marketing components. That’s why I say viral marketing is the most important web site traffic strategy. You MUST have that in place before even thinking about where to get your initial traffic.

Am I clear on this point?

Ok next, where do you get the initial traffic?

Frankly, it really doesn’t matter where you get the initial traffic, as long as the traffic you receive are targeted.

When finding the initial web site traffic, an important question to ask yourself is “Where can I find people who are interested in my web site?” Whatever answer you get, go there and find ways to channel the traffic to your website.

It could mean you have to pay some money to advertise. It could also mean you have to write to some website owners and strike out some JV deals.

When I first started, I had no JV contact and I got all my initial traffic from advertising. I spent quite a bit on advertising (5 figures to be exact), but I soon earned back the money because I put a lot of “charcoal” around my traffic starter. Get the idea?

That’s really my main secret to increase web site traffic and I hope you get the gist of it.

In today’s blog, I’m going to share with you how to get good response from safelist advertising.

Many gurus will tell you that safelist is a complete waste of time and to certain extend, I agree. But if you know the tricks, it can be a good source of traffic for you.

Without further ado, here are the tricks to get good response from safelist advertising.

1) Don’t sell. Build list!

Safelist traffic seldom buy stuff on the spot. Don’t advertise your business opportunity directly or sell your product upfront. It won’t work.

Instead, your main job is to give. Give away free gifts, free info and/or arouse their curiosity so that they opt-in to your list.

After they opt-in to your list, you can lead them to a one-time offer using leadsleap.com/blog/effective-online-advertising-strategy/" target="_blank"> the strategy I shared with you earlier on. If the offer is good, they will bite.

To illustrate, when I advertise leadsleap program, the sales page I use is leadsleap.com/special.php" target="_blank"> this. (You can use the same page to build your leadsleap team by simply adding your referid at the end of the url).

As you can see, I’m giving away more than 1000 minutes of internet marketing videos. The opt-in conversion is good. After prospects opt-in, they will see my one-time offer. About 5% will take up the offer, but bear in mind that it’s not the end.

Safelist traffic are usually newbies of the newbies. Once they opt-in to your list, if you can feed them with great information and show them the way to make money online, they can be your best long term customers.

2) It all started with a catchy email subject.

Safelist members receive tons of emails a day. Wanting them to read your email is very tough and that’s why most people fail to get much traffic.

(Usually, when you join an individual safelist program, the response is so low that it can be a waste of your time. For better response, it is wiser to use a leadsleap.com/go/11125" target="_blank"> safelist submitter that allows you to submit your ad to thousands of safelists at one time.)

As I’ve said, safelist members receive tons of emails everyday. When they browse through their list of emails, the only thing they see is your email subject. Therefore the only way to capture their attention is through your email subject.

There are 2 important tips on writing email subject:

i) When writing your email subject, focus on giving and don’t try to sell or hype.

Email subjects such as “Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot” will not work because people know you are trying to sell something.

Instead, email subject like “Free Report: How I Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot” will get some traffic to your squeeze page.

ii) To further increase the response, you MUST make your subject stand out VISUALLY.

This is the main secret, so pay special attention to this.

What I’m saying is you should add some special characters that can make your ad quickly recognizable from the list of email subjects.

To illustrate what I mean, look at the list of email subjects below and tell me which one captures your attention.

Still Reading Commercial Emails For Free?
Start to Increase Your ClickBank Sales Today!
The Gas Alternatives Report : Up To $2000 Monthly!
### Free Report ### How I Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot
You won’t believe this is free
THE LIGHTNING RESULT SAFELIST - FREE TO JOIN - FREE TO EARN!!
3 Reasons You Should Consider

If you browse through the subjects above, you should see that “### Free Report ### How I Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot” stands out from the rest.

The trick is to use some special characters to increase your chance of having your email subject being read.

Some tricks you can use include:

### Free Report ###
**** Urgent !!! ****
[Unadvertised Bonus]
FW:
RE:

I’ve also seen people starting an email subject with characters like these:

(¯`*
L@@K HERE >>

Be creative and think out of the box when using characters to capture attention.

But remember, this trick can ONLY capture people’s attention. Eventually, it’s the words that determine if they want to read your ad. Remember to give rather than to sell or hype in your email subject.

Email subjects like this

**** Urgent !!! **** Start to Increase Your ClickBank Sales Today!

will not get you much traffic, but email subjects like this

**** Urgent !!! **** 6000 Free Leads For You At $0 Cost

will.

To sum up, effective safelist advertising begins with 1) a VISUALLY powerful email subject, 2) an irresistible email subject that offers something that one would be crazy to reject and 3) a squeeze page that can get people to opt-in to get the offer, and finally 4) a good follow-up system that lives on the principle of “give and thou shall receive”.

Last but not least, remember that the success of any advertising campaign does not lie in the source of your traffic (so long as the traffic is targeted). More importantly, it lies in the amount of leadsleap.com/blog/my-best-kept-secrets-to-increase-web-site-traffic-from-scratch/"> charcoal you have set up.