What Are My Internet Advertising Options

Here's a question I get asked a lot. "What are my options for advertising on the Internet?" In other words, what ways can I promote my business online? Notice the question is not so much, "What are my effective options for advertising on the Internet?" I guess people assume that advertising is advertising and anything they use is going to bring the same results. If only that were true. As a studier of Internet advertising for over four years now, I can honestly say that some forms of advertising are good and others are just flat out terrible. While it is beyond the scope of this article to go over every form of Internet advertising available to you, a subject that books have been written on, I will try to summarize the good and the bad so that hopefully, you'll have a guideline to what types of advertising to pursue.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. Any sort of advertising where the site says "Blast your ads all over the Internet" or some other sort of dribble, is pretty much worthless. The reason for that is because these ads pretty much go to web sites that nobody even knows exists. So the chances of your ad being seen are slim to none. Don't waste your time with ad blasting services of any kind.

Another bad form of advertising is buying leads and sending out emails to them. The reason for this is because most leads that are bought are harvested, untargeted and will ultimately result in spam complaints and you getting your ISP to shut you down permanently. It's just not worth the risk. So do yourself a favor and forget about buying leads.

You also want to stay away from things like safelists and incentivized advertising. Safeslists will get you nothing but junk email and incentivized advertising is worthless because the people visiting your site have been paid something to go there and have no real interest in what you are selling. You may make a sale here or there, but for the most part, what you spend will be more than what you make.

There's more bad, but let's get on to some good before you get so depressed that you feel like throwing your PC out a window. One of the best forms of advertising, mostly because it is so cheap, actually free, is article writing and directory submission. This method gets people to your web site quickly and with little or not cost. The downside is that you have to write articles on a daily basis.

Another great way to advertise online is through Google pay per click. This is about the most targeted traffic you can get. The only drawback is that you have to do quite a bit of research to find keywords that don't cost a fortune. You also have to learn to write 3 line ads that convert. This is not an easy thing to do.

Finally, solo e-zine ads are very good if you find a good e-zine with a large member base. One ad alone can get you quite a few sales if you reach a responsive list. The problem is finding such a list, which is usually a lot of trial and error.

There are other decent forms of free advertising such as forum participation and posting to high traffic message boards, but these few that I have mentioned should get you started.

If it sounds like Internet advertising isn't easy and in reality your options are limited, at least as far as effectiveness, it isn't and they are.

That's why not everybody online is a millionaire.

To YOUR Success