3 Ways to Avoid Wasting Time on Pay For Space Promotional Gift Sites When Sourcing Promotional Gifts

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Dan_Toombs]Dan Toombs

There are still a few of them out there: The dinosaur old media pay for space sites that sell advertising space to promotional gift suppliers and not promotional gifts. These media companies hire people to write articles and press releases that take the reader back to their site listing hundreds of business gift suppliers that have paid for the right to be there. Many of the writers of these articles have never even sold a business gift in their lives. They have sold advertising space and they are hoping that by getting you to their site it will keep their advertisers there.

Back when the internet was much younger these types of pay for space websites offered a good service. They offered you a place you could go that was like a yellow pages of the promotional gift industry. Today, however, many promotional merchandise suppliers have begun specialised in one, two or three products and have built outstanding websites around those products. They have properly optimised their websites to ensure you the customer can easily navigate and find the required promotional pens, printed stress balls etc. on their sites. Often they are rewarded by higher search engine ratings and hopefully a few more happy customers.

If you find yourself directed to a site that does not actually sell product but simply houses many sites that do, ask yourself these three questions;

1. Should I stay here or begin my search anew, perhaps with more specific keywords on Google?

2. Have I checked out the pay for click sponsored listings on the major search engines yet? If you cannot find the promotional gifts you are looking for in the organic listings, look in the sponsored listings. Each search engine has sponsored listings. Google for example features their sponsored pay for click advertisements at the top and along the side of each search page. Companies that advertise there are strategically placing their sites to get the best results. They are much more in control and are only charged for how well their site performs rather than for a large chunk of cyber-space. You are much more likely to find a company that offers you excellent information and service and less likely to contact a company that is there because they have a large budget for purchasing banner adds. With pay for click advertising, you can usually see if you are being directed to a supplier's site or if it is merely an advertisement for a business gift portal.

3. Why are you on the pay for space ad website in the first place?: Were you directed there by an online article or press release perhaps? There are a lot of articles out there directly people to such sites. When clicking on links of interesting articles, ask yourself is the author directing me to more detailed information about their products and services or am I simply being led to site in an effort to keep the hits to their site up in an effort to keep their paying customers happy.

Dan Toombs is the Managing Director of CompuGift Limited. Established in 1997, CompuGift was the UK's first internet based promotional gift supplier.

CompuGift's popular [http://www.promotionalpens.co.uk]promotional pens features the largest selection of quality promotional pens in the UK. [http://www.compugift.co.uk]CompuGift is a leading supplier of promotional gifts to businesses in the UK and Europe.

Dan would love to hear from you and would be happy to offer information and advice on any promotional products that are of interest. He can be contact on 01642 782455.

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