My question for readers is how do you promote?

Here are some of the different methods I use for my sites:

1. Blog postings
2. Blog Comments
3. Forum Comments
4. Forum Sigs
5. Pay Per Click (PPC)
6. Banner Ads
7. Text link ads (such as adbrite etc.)
8. SEO efforts
9. Press Releases

If you have any other ideas post them, or put links to your favorite ad networks.

Danny

Let’s take a look at those services. First, you don’t know where or how they are generating the traffic. In most cases, the traffic is not targeted, meaning that it is possible that not a single one of those thousands of visitors has any interest in the topic of your niche. Finally, you can’t really be sure that the traffic is ‘real.’

But, there is a way to purchase real, targeted traffic. You can use Pay-Per-Click advertising, through a service such as Google AdWords. When you purchase traffic using this method, the traffic is targeted – and real. You don’t pay for a certain number of traffic, you pay for each click, as the name, pay-per-click, indicates.

Now, if you don’t know what you are doing, Pay-Per-Click can be expensive, and ineffective. It is important that you make sure that you write a targeted ad, first and foremost. It is also essential that you select the right keywords, and that you bid the right amount on those keywords.

Google AdWords really makes this very easy. You can type in your main keyword, and they will give you a list of other related keywords that apply as well. Next, when you set the amount you are willing to pay, per click, for each keyword, you can use the traffic analysis tools in Google AdWords to see where your ad will be listed, based on what you are paying per click, and how much traffic you can expect from it.

Raise your bid price until you see that you will be listed where you want to be (preferably the first page of search results). Again, PPC can be very expensive. Make sure that you know how much you can afford to spend on these ads each week, divide it by seven, and set a daily budget up in your AdWords account. Also specify how you want those funds spread out through the day.

There are entire courses written on the topic of Google AdWords. I advise that you take one, because there are a lot of elements and tricks that need to be learned to make AdWords work out well for you.

Again, don’t waste your traffic! Make sure that you are capturing first names and email addresses from the people that arrive at your website through PPC advertising!

Homework Assignment: Determine whether or not you want to purchase traffic or not, and if you do, find a good pay-per-click service, such as Google AdWords, and get set up.

Affiliate marketing began just four years after the world wide web was launched, originally popularized by well known companies such as CDNOW or Amazon.com. Google’s Adsense is also a very well known type of affiliated marketing, but is not really considered as true affiliate marketing as the adverts usually centers around the theme of the website they are displayed (known more as contextual advertising.) Google does not also directly sell a specific product, but generates money in other ways.

Affiliate marketing is highly cost-effective, and in effect costs both the advertiser and the affiliate nothing, while having the potential of bringing in a very large form of income for both parties. While pay per click (or cost-per-click) mentioned above can present a risk to the advertiser, the cost-per-sale (CPS) system has very little or no risk at all for both parties, and is therefore preferred.

When an affiliate joins in with an e-commerce merchant of some sort (be it a subscription service, a shopping site etc…) payment is received through referrals done from the affiliate’s website – done through the following methods

1)Pay-per click systems  basically, the affiliate displays adverts on their site and is paid when a customer or internet user clicks on that website

2)RSS feeds or blogs – even personal sites can sit under this category. Blogging is fast becoming a staple form of marketing and promotion, and affiliate marketing partners well with this form of online communication

3)Comparison sites and shopping directories – such as review sites or legit advertising sites

4)Loyalty sites – this is when a reward system is in place via a cash back or points back system (or charitable donations)

5)Coupon sites that focus strictly on marketing and promotions

6)Email lists – legit email lists to subscribers of the affiliate’s website etc – NOT spam

7)A registration path – when a person registers with a specific site, be it for a newsletter or subscription, offers from other companies are represented and advertised

8)Networks – there are many affiliate marketing networks. Some even function on a multi-tier or multi-level marketing sort of set up.

It’s a form of revenue sharing or commission based advertising. The term “affiliate marketing,” however, is often associated with network marketing or multi-level marketing and therefore many companies prefer to use the term “performance marketing”. Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective sort of marketing there is, and is actually incredibly efficient. For this reason, many companies (especially those that started in the early days of e-commerce) owe a tremendous amount to affiliate marketing (amazon.com is a good example) and it has now become normal for companies to include affiliate marketing in many of their plans.

There are three types of compensation methods that are associated with affiliated marketing. The first type is Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost per Mil (CPM.) Basically, the affiliate earns by how many clicks the advertising on hisher site generates, or by just having the advert published on the website. But because of click fraud and many other questionable tactics, CPC is no longer the general form used for affiliate marketing. Generally, companies now either use CPA (Cost per Action) or CPS (Cost per Sale.) The first is based on how much the advert generates interest by the clicker to actually buy or register at the advertised site, the second is based strictly on sales. In other words, an affiliate is paid if the clicker actually purchases something on the advertised site.

First where do your ads show up?  In Google they show up across the top or the right side.  The top ads are are generally in a lighter background to separate them from organic results.  The advantage of using PPC is to force your site to be seen even if it doesn’t have Organic Rankings.  It is important to understand that even with organic ranking you can produce far more sales using PPC in conjunction with it.   A report from Atlas stated that if you have a PPC ad you are likely to make “2 sales” and organic linking “1 sale”, having both you make “4 sales”.  While I haven’t seen this myself, it is a reliable source and I’ll take that to heart.

Google forces you to bid for positions, but they do not tell you what you need to get into the top spot.  They use some level of black magic to determine who gets top slot.  They look at Ad Copy, Landing Page, Bid and Click through rate.  Now if you have a high CTR and high quality others you will actually pay less than your “Bid”.  Also you can big less and get higher position.  It all gets convoluted, but you need to make sure you have a high Quality Score in Google and you’ll reap the benefits.  (post questions on adwords if you have any and I’ll answer the best I can)

So now you’ve placed your bids, you can choose to have ads show up on Google, their search partners or in their content network.  The content network is by far their largest audience, but it also their more dangerous place for click fraud so if you are going to use it, watch it very carefully and you can restrict certain sites from displaying your ads or you can chose to show your ads only on certain sites by url/placement.  But unfortunately many good quality sites that have adsense do not have this option turned on (TURN IT ON!).

A couple of key items are to make sure you have a strong ad, and strong url to send people too.  Many people working with affiliate marketing will try to send people to the same url. So now they are all competing for the same property.  (Google, Yahoo etc will only allow one ad per url to appear).  Later on I promise I’ll go over landing pages, url’s and ads for ppc and other advertising.  My experience is very different than most so hopefully people will gain some knowledge.

Key things to keep in mind, you’re shirt needs to stay on  your back you need to MONITOR your campaigns or you will lose a LOT of money.