How to Advertise on the Internet

A simple guide to Internet Advertising

There are many ways to advertise on the internet. Most of the effective advertising methods are simple and easy to do. Here is a quick guide to internet advertising.

Start with a basic marketing plan

If online marketing were a basketball team, here would be my starting five.

• Natural Search Engine Optimization
• Pay Per Click
• Media Campaigns
• Newsletter
• Promotions
• Social Media

Online Advertising with Search Engine Optimization

Search engines are the number one way to drive traffic to a website. There are a few components to having a site rank well in search engines.

• Build a site that the crawlers can easily navigate.
• Make sure each page has a unique title tag, decription tag and lots of well written unique content.
• Build one way links from topical sites.

Now there are entire books written on this subject, but most of it is over done. Stick to the basics of a site that can easily be crawled, lots of good content, and links from topical sites and you'll do fine.

Pay Per Click Internet Advertising

Pay per click are programs from Google and Yahoo where bids are placed on terms that show up in the search results. Depending on your budget there are a few options. You can hire a firm to do it or do it yourself. The key to a good pay per click program is to understand your conversion rates. Tune your pay per click program by bidding on words that convert and lower bids or drop them all together on terms that do not convert.

Purchasing Media

Similar to pay per click options the key is to understand your conversion rate. Most media is purchased on a CPM basis. That's the cost per 1000 impression of your ad. Google offers a contextual advertising network and depending on your budget there are many full service options available. Media for performance based campaigns may be complex, but just be sure to make more than you spend.

Email Marketing

Collect email addresses from your users to keep them up to date on specials and other options. Email marketing is still one of the most cost effective and best ways to keep in contact with customers.

Promotions

I have one friend that makes his entire living off of an email list that he gives great promotions of new products and services. Its sort of an early adopters early adopters program. Until I saw this, I never knew how effective they could be. Offer something unique that your audience wants regularly on your site.

Social Media

Social media has become an important part of internet advertising. There are two main components. The first is earned media via social channels like a blog and twittter. By providing regular and useful information through these channels, you "earn" a following and your voice gains credibility. Here you can send a tweet with a promotion once you have a following.

The second component of social media is having word of mouth over the internet about your product travel from one person to the next. This can be done by getting your product reviewed by influential internet users and by creating a facebook profile for your business. The key is to keep these areas updated with fresh content and to remember that bad behavior travels more quickly than good behavior online, so you want to be extra good with social marketing.

By Paul Edmondson

pauledmondson.hubpages.com