What’s the first thing I check when a client asks:

Should I pay for an ad with this website?

How can you tell if you might get traffic for your ad dollars?

1. First, I want to know how many pages of this site have been indexed by Google.
2. Next, I want to know how many OTHER websites online consider this website to be important.
3. Finally, I want to review the exact page where my link will be placed, and I want to make certain that page is already indexed in Google.

Sound hard?

Not at all. You can review a site in under 2 minutes - and compare it against other marketing opportunities too.

Start Here:

Search Engine Saturation – how many pages are indexed by the top search engines? (how visible are you on the search engines)

http://tools.marketleap.com/siteindex/default.htm

TIP: Enter the domain name of the site you are considering advertising with, and compare it to your website, www.sunsetcountry.net, www.tourismcanada.ca, www.Freemap.ca and/or www.canadianfishingbook.com

Next Stop:

Link Popularity – How many sites link to your site? (how visible are you on the rest of the Internet?)

http://tools.marketleap.com/publinkpop/

Compare the same domains with the place that wants your marketing budget…

Final step:

(how visible is the exact page where I’m paying for space?)

Surf to the exact page where your link will be placed. Copy the web address, then do a Cache Search on Google with the following format:

cache:http://www.sitename.com/webpageexample.html

Here’s an example search for you to check out: copy and paste this as a google search

cache:http://www.canadianfishingbook.com/category/winter-activities/

What To Look For?

For Step 1 and Step 2, the numbers say it all.  Bigger IS better. Take a look at the Trend History Reports for helpful charts.
For Step 3 – Make sure that Google has this exact page in it’s index. Then,  check to be assured that this page has been re-indexed and updated recently – ( if Google hasn’t re-indexed this page in the past couple months, this page has likely been flagged as static and your new link won’t be noticed until the Google Bot returns – sometimes months later.)

In Conclusion

BUYER BEWARE

With these tools, you can easily tell how effective your online marketing dollars will be – before you part with them.

It’s a few minutes well invested.

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