People are always asking for the quickest way to increase website traffic to their sites. While search engines are the number one source of website traffic... it usually takes a while to get listed or to get high search engine rankings. Banner ads on the other hand are just too expensive and offer a very low bang for your buck.

The quickest, most cost effective form of online advertising is placing solo ads in ezines or online newsletters.

Classified ezine ads at one time where a highly effective and efficient method of driving traffic to your site. However, they are beginning to lose their effectiveness and they just don't have the pulling power they once had and your return on you investment can be very low.

But, that doesn’t mean that all ezine advertising should be tarred with the same brush. You need to purchase advertising that is able to gain the attention of your audience, with out having to compete with multiple other advertisers.

A solo ad is an advertisement that promotes a single product by email to an opt in ezine list. It is normal sent to the entire subscriber list, with no other competing advertising or promotion contained in the email.

You can purchase solo ads for as little as $30 per issue and if you have an effective ad for the appropriate audience, they can often produce astonishing results of three to ten times the cost of the ad.

If you select a high quality ezine that has a responsive list, which is highly targeted to your product, and the solo ad is personally endorsed by the owner of the ezine, the pulling power of the ad can increase up to 10 times the normal response rate.

There just isn’t anywhere else that you can get this kind of bang for your buck when it comes to spending money on your marketing.

By testing and tracking your ads and expanding into different ezines on a progressive basis you could quickly start reaching thousands of people weekly and earning an income to match.

Which Ezines Should You Place Your Solo Ad

This begs the question. Which ezines should you place your sola ad in?

There is no easy answer to this question unless you test your ad in different ezines. I will outline the following tips to help you decide which ezine is the best to advertise in from a money and marketing point of view.

First of all, it is usually pointless to advertise your product or service in an ezine that is totally unrelated. For example, you would not want to place your ad for selling car stereos in an ezine about dogs. Sure you might get some replies and maybe even some orders, but if you want your money's worth, this is not a good place to advertise.

The best thing to do is to find all the ezines that you think are similar to the product or service you are selling. If you are a web promotion service, the best place to advertise would be an ezine about web marketing, because the subscribers are usually looking for tips. But isn't that where the competition advertises? Of course! The best place to advertise is where the competition is!

Once you have picked a number of ezines that you are considering advertising in, you must consider the circulation. If you advertise in an ezine that has a circulation of 750, you cannot possibly expect to have the same type of results had you advertised in an ezine with 15,000 subscribers. There is generally no rule thumb as to how much of a response you should receive. Is it 1%, 2% or even 5%? It is hard to project because of other variables involved such as a poorly written classified ad.

Some ezines will publish their circulation rates so that advertisers are aware of the number of people who could possibly see their ad. Of course there could be some unscrupulous individuals who might inflate their circulation numbers to attract more advertisers.

Unfortunately there is nothing that the advertiser can do if this occurs, because there is no regulation of ezines on the internet. So you have to place your trust that most of these publishers are being honest. The dishonest publisher will hurt himself in the long run when repeat business does not occur.

A handy tip is to ask the ezine owner for the details of other website owners who have advertised with them. Then you can send them a quick email, politely asking them if they were happy with the results of the solo ad they placed with this ezine and whether they would recommend you use them.

How Does the Ezine Attract Its Subscribers?

Another tip that the advertiser should take into consideration is how does the ezine attract subscribers. Most ezines wait for the subscriber to request permission to be put on the ezine list. This is better known as an opt in email list and these are probably the people that will respond to your ads.

Other ezines use methods such as automatically adding the subscribers address to the list if they post a free link or free classified at their site. But how effective is this list?

If most of these people did not ask to be put on the list, do they really care about reading the ezine when it is sent to them or do they just hit the delete button. These people will never see your ad. So it is important to find out how different ezines get their subscribers!

The advertiser should also subscribe to the ezine and look at the content that is include in the ezine. Are the articles well written? I subscribe to many ezines that cater to business. The problem is that most of the ezines have the same articles written by a select few. It is great exposure for the person who wrote the article, but this can be a turn off for a subscriber who has already seen it.

If you are reading an ezine that already has an article you have read, you will probably not finish reading the ezine. This hurts the advertisers because the subscriber does not read their ads.

Also consider the various amount of content in the ezine. Is it 75% classified ads and 25% content? Does the publication run contests such as "Spot the Double Ad" or "Spot the Word" contests to get subscribers to skim the classified ads? These contests are effective tools in getting your advertiser's ads read. If the whole ezine is 60-70 classified ads, will your ad get lost in the bunch? These things should be considered seriously before you spend a dime.

What Price Should You Pay For Your Solo Ad

Probably the most important issue when deciding where to advertise your ad copy is price. There are no general guidelines on what ezines should charge you. Some charge by the word, line or a flat rate. Prices can vary anywhere from $10 to $50 for one issue.

The best method to determine which ezine will give you the best results for your dollar is dividing the total amount of the ad by the ezine's circulation.

For example, "Cool Cash Ezine" charges a flat $65 rate for a solo ad. With a circulation of about 6,250 this works out to 6,250 / $65 = 96 subscribers per dollar. So every dollar you spend, you are reaching 96 people.

Now if "Imagine Ezine" charges a flat rate of $80 for your ad and has 10,200 subscribers, this works out to 10,200 / $80 = 127, so you are reaching 127 people for every dollar you spend.

Obviously the second deal, while it appears to be a bit more expensive up front, is the better deal.

These are just some of the factors that you should consider when investing your money into various ezines.