Smart Cookies

Recently there was an article in USAToday by Edward C. Baig that cast doubt on the value of spending large amounts of money on pricey banner ads.

According to Baig, the Nielsen Norman Group, based in Fremont California, recently released a study where the Nielson firm asked more then 230 participants to research specific topics online. The participants were hooked up to sophisticated eye-tracking equipment that allowed the authors of the study to track what people were looking at on their computer screens.

Baig writes, “the study findings show companies still have much to learn about how best to present an online image.” The findings of the study suggest people see very little on most web pages – including the pricy banner ads at the top of most web pages.

This would explain why most banner ad click through rates are horrendously low. If most companies get a click through rate of 5% they are incredibly happy with the results of the ad campaign.

There are literally thousands of pay per click advertisers on the net who will gladly take your money with no promise of any return or guarantee of success.

For some small start up companies or people interested in starting a home based online business, you may want to consider where you spend your hard earned advertising dollars.

There seems to be a growing opinion out there that a credible press release may in fact be the way to go when trying to get your companies name in front of the masses. Many reputable companies can often do a press release for under two hundred dollars. If you consider that some of these companies that submit press releases have instant credibility with news sites like Yahoo! and Google, then you can easily see how your press release can easily get picked up and posted on the web.

The other thing you should consider if you are considering submitting a press release is old adage that “content is king” on the internet. There are many websites out there that are starving for online content. They would love nothing better then to post your press release online just to have content for their readers.

Gary Kelly is co-creator of the online dating website for golfers, http://www.DateAGolfer.com and http://www.PuttingForPar.com, a golf website specializing in personalized ball markers