IS PURCHASING GUARANTEED HITS WORTHWHILE?
by: Cary Christian

Guaranteed hits programs will sell you a certain number of hits to the website of your choice for a generally very low price.  One real world example is 5,000 guaranteed hits for $24.95.  This works out to slightly less than a half cent for each hit which definitely makes these programs among the cheapest sources of traffic you can find. But all hits are not created equal!

The folks over at MLM Spy state on their web site (in the members' area) that they purchased over 250,000 guaranteed hits and didn't make one sale! Others will tell you they have had relatively good luck with them. What makes them work for some and not for others?


FIND THE SOURCE

If you are considering purchasing guaranteed hits, the first thing you should do is determine the source of the hits.

Many of these programs pay their members to visit your site or give them some other consideration such as product discounts, points that can be converted for cash and prizes, etc. Examples would be pay to read email and pay to surf companies. Some of your guaranteed hits may come from people playing lotto or other types of games where their visit to your site is required to validate their selections. These programs represent the bulk of the guaranteed hits offered by the programs available.

Some guaranteed hits programs provide you with your hits using pop-up and pop-under ads. If surfers have pop-up stopping software of some flavor installed, they won't even see your site.

The traffic you will receive from these types of programs is generally garbage traffic. Your visitors are interested in earning their half cent or other consideration for visiting your site and will pay little attention to your message, if any.

If you are to get any decent results from this type of traffic, you will have to have an unusually compelling web site for their viewing pleasure that attracts their attention sufficiently to make them explore your proposition further. Make it easy for them to sign up, bookmark your site, subscribe to your newsletter or autoresponder, or request additional information.  You're only going to have their attention for a few seconds, so don't waste it.

You will have more luck if you are offering them something free to entice them to sign up for a newsletter or request additional information. Offering free to join programs might also yield results. But don't expect massive sign ups to your paid programs. It's just not going to happen.


IS THIS BEGINNING TO SOUND FAMILIAR?

If you've read some of our prior issues of the Peak Small Business Newsletter, you'll recognize that our recommendation as to how to use guaranteed hits programs is very similar to our recommendations for how to use the free traffic programs.

Well, in fact it is exactly the same! What is the real difference between most guaranteed hits programs and the free traffic programs? The only difference is that in one people are being paid with cash or prizes and in the other they are being paid with hits to their own website. Same thing. So why pay for guaranteed hits? Why not just surf for your hits?

We can see no reason why you should opt for guaranteed hits programs over the free traffic programs. The traffic you will receive is basically the same but you don't have to pay for it with the free programs. Granted, it takes more time to build up your free programs, and guaranteed hits programs give you the hits more quickly. However, we see no reason to rush the acquisition of such low quality traffic. Build your downlines in free traffic programs and, over time, you will begin getting as much of this type of traffic as you want.


Copyright (c) 2002