Advertize to Make Money

Buckminister Fuller talked a lot about "getting a lot out of a little and more for less". This concept is very applicable to advertising and getting people to go to your sites and buy. You see, it is important to do some kind of selection process, because most websites have particular products, and only cater for a single niche, or area of interest. So, you can see that you need to focus on only those people that will be targeted. These are people that are already looking for products or services that you are offering. They will at least take an interest in your products and may at the least return to your site at a later date. This is a basic principle. Another basic principle is to reach as many of these people as often as you can and on a feasable level.

Firstly, I will show you some traditional methods and after I will show you some online techniques.

5 Traditional Arenas to Place Advertisements

People talk all day on the internet about how to improve SEO (search engine optimization) to increase websites standings on the search results. It is all about making money online and that is what more and more people want to do on the internet today. Have people forgotten about the tried and trusted old techniques of traditional media? Here are 5 traditional arenas that are at the top of the list in the world of advertising.

1) Television:

This medium has been around for a while alright, but getting on it is a way to get your home based business on a whole new level. It is up to the individual advertiser to make the effort to get either themselves or some form of an advertisement on here to get the attention of the masses. It is possible to simply ask your local Television news to interview you, and you could make a really interesting story or angle on your business, or show that you are helping your community, and make it newsworthy.

2) Radio:

Video killed the Radio Star is a popular song but it was still a hit on the radios. Radio is still up there with mass media and reaches masses of people every day. A cleverly written and delivered short advertisement on radio can catch a listener very quickly, and he or she will not be able to forget it. Also, it can be targeted, if the ad is placed in the programs that match your business.

3) Billboards:

This is an old one too. However, if you can make a memorable, catchy bill-board, on the side of a busy road or highway, you can be sure people are going to start talking about it in the car as they drive by and if people start talking, they start thinking, and talking some more, and before you know it, they are checking the website, and calling the numbers of your business.

4) Newspapers:

Again, a very old medium of advertising, but one that can be leveraged to produce great returns on advertising costs. Nowadays, there are specific newspapers and magazines that cater for all the areas you could be involved in. That means there are more targeted newspapers now, and you will reach your target audience on a more consistent basis, and achieve higher returns on your advertising costs.

5) Flyers and drop cards:

It’s the good old fashioned get out there and get busy technique. This method of advertising is used extensively. People can be seen, on busy streets distributing flyers, and on the subway placing drop cards, and in the local supermarket posting printed adverts. It is easy to get stuck in your computer screen, with all the online hype. You should think out of the box when trying to make the big advertising impact you will need to make money in your business. The old and trusted media are too good to ignore and forget about.

Online Methods

PPC - Pay Per Click

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site.

There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines. As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective.

One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee. In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Adwords, usually appear on other popular search engines.

I have used PPC to generate a lot of quality trafic to my sites and earn good money as a result.

Article Marketing:

This is a great free method to start generating traffic to your websites. You can write helpful articles usually over 400 to 500 words in length, and then just submit them to article directories You will recieve targetted traffic because the people will be searching for keywords in your articles.

E-mail Marketing:

This is a powerful technique. It involves setting up an opt-in form in your site in order to collect e-mails, and build a list of loyal supporters. You can also get into solo e-mails, and contact other list holders to send a one time offer to another persons list.

Social Networking:

Here is a great free method of getting traffic. You can set up accounts at the major social networking sites such as Myspace, facebook, and yahoo 360. You look out for people in your area or niche. You build relationships, and dont push them or fill your profile with links. In order to succeed, you should provide value, and give, give, give. After you have built enough of a following and trust, then you can show your products

Mailers:

This is a little known goldmine. It involves researching the highly powered SRDS database (in your library), and find lists of targeted people interested in your product or service. You create post cards and you can just send them out at minimal cost to these lists after you have secured the rights to communicate. It is easy and highly targetted.

Video Marketing:

This is an incredible method of advertising, because you get to present yourself out on the net, in person giving useful advice and support. You dont have to appear on the screen if you dont want to, because of software like camtasia studio, which can give a screen view video shot of your computer. You can simply speak and allow the video to record the computer screen as you work and show some online methods. Youtube is massive now, and can generate lots of traffic for your site.

Banner Advertising:

You can use banners which are just clickable pictures and boxes on websites that bring the person to the banner's product website. It is possible that you can do banner exchange with other websites in your general area of service. There are many means of advertising, and you will learn more about them as you begin to use them, and over time they are developing and people are coming up with new ways to advertise. Think about who you want to attract. Think about how many you need. Also make sure you analyse the costs of each and the most effective for you. You will need to evaluate them after using them also.