Advertising On Your Web Site
Add New Streams of Revenue to Your Business by Advertising for OTHER Companies on Your Web Site!
If you're just getting started on the Internet
— or simply looking for ways to add new revenue streams to your
business — you might consider the option of placing ads for other
companies' products on your web site.
After all, who wouldn't like to make a few extra
bucks? And it's so simple — you just put up a couple of ads on
your site and wait for the cash to roll in, right?
Um... wrong. At least, that's not the way it usually
works.
When you're just starting out, your primary focus
needs to be on promoting your OWN business — not someone else's.
It's far better to build a relationship with your target market
and generate interest in your own products than it is to
try generating profits with advertising another company's items.
Not only that, but you could be opening yourself up to a whole new
set of problems...
-
What if your visitors click on the ads and never return to
your site?
-
What if you just end up sending business to your competitors?
-
What if your visitors are turned off by your ads because they
see them as nothing more than a "cash grab"?
To make your site attractive to companies looking
for potential advertisers, you'll need to have a great niche market,
tons of traffic, and the promise of good ad placement on your site.
Most companies won't even consider placing an ad on your
site until you can guarantee that you're receiving a large number
of highly targeted visitors on a daily or monthly basis.
However, there are ways for you to make money
advertising on your web site, even if you don't have huge amounts
of traffic. In fact, one of these strategies might even help drive
traffic your way!
One thing, though:
While promoting other companies' products on your
site might be a good way to make money advertising on your web site,
it's important to remember that not all ads work for all businesses.
If you decide to start experimenting with placing ads on your site,
there are three things you absolutely HAVE to do:
- Test
- Test
- Test AGAIN!
You want to make sure you're testing the impact
of every element of your new ad campaigns to make sure they're having
a positive effect on your business.
As you start out, be sure to carefully test the
following:
- different products for different companies
- different styles of ads
- different types of ad copy
- different positioning of ads on your web site
You need to monitor your conversion rates to
make sure that they stay as high as possible as you try out your
various ad campaigns. That way, you'll discover which Internet advertising
techniques REALLY work for you and your business — and keep
working!
The most important thing when choosing which ads
to place on your site is to ensure they are for products your target
market is actually INTERESTED in. You'll want to advertise products
that complement your own product or service and offer real benefits
to your market. Only then can you guarantee that your visitors will
be happy to see your ads, instead of being turned off by them.
There are lots of different ways to promote
other people's products. The easiest — and often the most successful
— include...
- Promoting affiliate products on your web site
- Starting a targeted Google AdSense campaign
- Approaching companies directly to ask if you
can advertise for them
- Signing up for a blog-specific ad program
Read on to learn more about IMC'S best Internet
advertising strategies!
1. Promote an affiliate product on your web site
Joining another company's affiliate program is
one of the simplest ways to get started with Internet advertising.
While affiliate links are not technically "ads," they
do allow you to make money by promoting someone else's product.
If you're unfamiliar with what an affiliate program
is, it's simply a "no-risk" partnership that allows you
to promote another company's product or service on your web site
to earn a percentage of the sales.
As one of the company's "affiliates"
(promotion partners), you earn a commission each time someone you've
referred to their web site makes a purchase. You might post a banner
on your web site that links to the company's site, or you might
publish an article about their products in your newsletter.
No matter how you promote them, though, it's a
win-win arrangement for both of you because:
-
The company running the affiliate program gets "no-risk"
advertising (in most cases, they don't pay you unless one of
your referred visitors makes a purchase)
-
And you, the affiliate, get the opportunity
to earn easy extra income without the hassles of production,
packaging, shipping, or customer service. Generally, there is
no fee to join and you can leave the program whenever you choose.
Not only that, but affiliate programs can be great
for driving traffic to your site, depending on the popularity of
the product you're promoting. If a lot of people are searching for
information on that product and you offer it for sale on your site,
then all those searches might help drive your web site to the top
of the search results — meaning a whole lot of extra traffic for
you!
Different affiliate programs offer different payout
options. Some might offer only 10% commission for each sale their
affiliates help generate, while other pay up to 50% of each sale!
You'll want to shop around for the best deal for you AND the best
fit for your web site.
To find good affiliate programs, check out the
following directories:
And you don't have to stick with just one company's
affiliate program — you can join a whole bunch of them!
In fact, some Internet advertising pros are actually
making all their income from signing on with multiple affiliate
programs. They don't even have a product of their own! This is not
a strategy for beginners, however, so take some time to check out
the different programs before you consider whether or not this could
be an option for you.
And remember that to make this work, you have
to have a highly-focused niche market and a good site that's loaded
with valuable content and gets a large number of visitors.
Now let's check out another program that can help
you start generating easy advertising revenues, with very little
effort on your part...
2. Use targeted advertising with Google AdSense
Google's
AdSense program allows you to make money advertising on your
web site by placing targeted text ads — generated by Google —
on your pages.
You've probably seen these Google ads on lots
of different web sites... they often appear in rectangular boxes
running down the side or across the bottom of a web page with the
words "Ads by Google" over the top. These ads are paid
for by businesses that use Google's pay-per-click program, AdWords.
Once you sign up with Google AdSense, these ads
begin to appear on your site, reflecting the content you post there.
So if your site sells a book on how to recognize authentic baseball
cards, for example, the ads that appear at your site might sell
baseball cards.
As one of Google's AdSense publishers, you earn
money every time a visitor to your site clicks on one of the AdWords
ads on your site. If you're getting a lot of targeted traffic, and
if these visitors are interested in the products being advertised
in the Google ads, then that could mean a healthy new source of
extra income for you!
There are a number of good reasons to start your
Internet advertising campaign with Google AdSense:
-
You can choose where on your web page the
ads will appear, leaving you in control of how Google uses your
site to advertise.
-
You can choose different ad formats (like
skyscrapers and banners) and colors for your Google Ads. This
way, you can make sure that the ads fit into the overall design
of your web pages.
-
You can track your earnings and figure out
how to maximize your AdSense profits by testing the positioning,
format, and appearance of the ads. Google provides all the stats
you need in one place, which makes it easy for you to test what's
working and what's not.
- You can easily block competitive ads or other
ads you don't want on your site. After all, you don't want to
accidentally end up advertising your competitors' products!
All this, AND Google
AdSense is free to join. It's easy, too — all you have to do
is complete their simple application process, and your ads will
be up and running right away. They do all the work of finding relevant
ads for your site, and you just collect the payments!
One thing to be aware of, though — Google ads
don't work for all kinds of sites. If, say, you run a high-end tailoring
business, this type of Internet advertising likely won't suit the
type of service you offer or the general design of your web site.
So if you add them to your site, be sure to test them! You don't
want to lose credibility with your target market — it's just not
worth it!
3. Approach companies directly
to ask if you can advertise for them
If your site is already getting lots of traffic and making a decent
number of sales, then another way to find products to promote on
your site is to look for sites that target the same niche market
as you do and offer products that are complementary (as opposed
to competitive!) with your own.
For example, if you own a bridal shop, you could
approach a local florist to see if they'd like to advertise their
wedding bouquets on your web site. After all, people who are planning
weddings are probably also looking for information on where to get
their flowers done.
An ad on your site would also be seen as an implicit
recommendation of their product, and could send a ton of relieved
brides to their web site, ready to buy. And the more successful
your ads for them are, the more you can end up charging for those
ads.
Or if you sell car detailing services, you could
approach a local auto parts store — or a local mechanic — and
ask them if they'd be interested in placing an ad on your site.
You already know that your target audience will probably
be interested in the products they offer, so it would be easy to
show them why an ad on your pages could help boost their sales.
Be sure to contact potential Internet advertising
partners in a professional manner to discuss your ideas for a partnership.
Call them on the phone instead of just emailing them, so your communication
is more personal and more professional.
Be ready to supply them with tons of information
about your business and your traffic. The more information you can
give them, the more likely they are to consider your offer.
And above all, make sure they have a solid reputation.
If you end up partnering with a questionable company, their activities
could reflect poorly on YOUR business!
You can also propose a joint-venture relationship,
in which you advertise their products on your site in exchange for
them doing the same for you. In this situation, they won't pay you
for the ads. However, the extra traffic they send your way could
end up generating even more revenues!
Just be sure to look for possible joint-venture
partners who are getting roughly the same amount of traffic as
you are (or maybe even a little more!). If they're TOO big, they
probably won't be interested in doing business with you. But if
they're not getting any traffic at all, then it probably won't
be worth your while to partner up with them.
4. Sign up for a blog-specific ad program
If you already have a blog you should consider
signing up to feature blog-specific ads on your site.
The kind of ads you place on your blog really
depends on the type of content you write or the products you sell.
The key is to consider the kinds of ads that YOUR target audience
will find valuable.
For example, if you're a fishing guide, and your
blog is all about some of your recent fishing trips — the
kind of stuff anglers want to read about! — then the ads
you have on your blog should be for products that your market
wants to buy, like rods, reels, and tackle.
Then, because they're all fired up about fishing
after reading your great blog, they might be tempted to click on
one of your ads and make a purchase!
Here are some great ways to attract advertisers
to your blog...
-
Sign up with a context-based ad program like
Google
AdSense that will automatically generate ads for your web
site that you can put up within minutes of being accepted in
their program. Crisp
Ads offers a similar program, but only for blogs.
-
Place Amazon
Associates ads on your site and feature ads for
specific products you PERSONALLY use or are happy to endorse.
That way, your customers are responding to your recommendation
as well as the fact that you've chosen to advertise products
that are complementary to your own.
-
Get advertisers interested in your blog with a simple
link they can use to contact you for rates and requirements.
This link can be a simple message saying, "Click here to
find out how to advertise on this blog!" That way, anyone
visiting your site is free to discuss advertising opportunities
with you.
-
Sign up with an advertiser-publisher connection program
like BlogAds
or AdBrite,
and get listed in their publishers directory. One important
note, however: with these types of ads, the advertisers look
through listings of THOUSANDS of blogs to choose the "right"
people to promote their products. Unless you're getting thousands
of visitors a day, they might not be all that interested in
doing business with you.
If you don't already have a blog, you should definitely
consider starting one. They're one of the hottest traffic-generating
strategies on the Web today! And you can set one up in just five
minutes with a free hosting site like Blogger
or Wordpress.
To learn more about how a blog can help with your
business, check out:
www.MarketingTips.com/trafficsecrets
5. How to present ads to your market in ways that
maximize their effectiveness
Have you ever clicked on a web site that seems
to have more ads than it has actual content of any kind? Sometimes
you can't even figure out what the site is supposed to be about!
If you assault your visitors with a dozen ads
for totally different products, not only are you going to totally
confuse them, you're going to drive them away from your site in
droves — and once they leave, they'll never be back!
Remember: your site needs to grab your market's
attention and make them want to stay! If you want to place ads on
your site for items that complement your product, that's fine. Just
be sure your ads aren't tacky, or overly distracting, or — worst
of all — that they don't ruin the credibility of your main site
sales message.
If you're placing Google AdSense (or other contextual
text ads) on your site, you have some control on how they look —
but not much. They're still quite obviously ads. You can,
however, choose colors and sizes and layouts for the ads (banner,
skyscraper, etc.) that suit the rest of your site design.
No matter what kind of ads you're placing on your
site, make sure they are as discreet and tasteful as possible. Try
placing ads in the right or left margins, where they won't compete
with your own images or copy.
When you're promoting affiliate products or advertising
other companies' products for them directly, you have a lot more
freedom to place the ads on your site in creative ways. You can
put up something as simple as a link to the other company's sales
site, or even something as detailed as a product
review.
In fact, product reviews are one of the best possible
ways to get your target market interested in the item you're advertising.
Simply post a detailed, helpful analysis of the
product — and a summary of all its benefits — and publish it directly
on your web site, or even in your blog or newsletter. Reviews come
off as more of a recommendation than an ad, which gives
them credibility in your visitors' eyes.
Which brings me to a really important point: if
you're going to endorse a product, make sure that the product is
something you've actually TRIED. Unless you've used the product
and believe in the things you're saying or publishing about it,
you could stand to lose some serious credibility in your customers'
eyes!
Final thoughts
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to
make sure that you have established your OWN business before you
consider advertising for other companies on your web site.
It's not a matter of putting up a few ads and
grabbing a paycheck — it takes a lot of research and testing
on an already ESTABLISHED site to make even the best Internet
advertising strategies truly pay off. If you don't have a regular
flow of visitors to your site, no one is going to be checking
out YOUR products, let alone the ads you have for other people's'
products!
You may also find that you have a target audience
that resists the presence of ads on a web site. If you're putting
them off by placing ads on your pages, then you're could end up
losing more customers and revenue than you actually gain! To make
sure this doesn't happen, remember to always TEST every single aspect
of each new ad campaign you run.
Only try one technique at a time — that's the
ONLY way to effectively track how successful the advertising is
for you AND the company whose products you're promoting. Once you
can tell how a certain strategy is working, you can make an informed
decision on whether or not it truly suits your site, your visitors,
and the company you're running the ads for.
But once you do discover the best Internet advertising
strategies for YOUR site, then you can try using those methods
to promote another product, and then another, and another. And
soon all those added revenue streams will combine to swell your
profits to record size!
And to learn more about the internet advertising
strategies I've talked about in this newsletter, check out:
www.MarketingTips.com/tipsltr.html
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