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
