Previously, we’ve seen some good habits that you can establish to start off the year well with your online marketing efforts. Here are some more tips that will help you make the most of your online marketing activities, no matter what line of business you’re operating in.

• Understand Your Audience and Target It Correctly

There are still many businesses which aren’t targeting their audience right when it comes to promoting their products and services online. While advertising on a “general” site can sometimes be profitable, most businesses will get better results with advertising that is targeted towards customers which are more likely to buy their products. If you use search based advertising, then you’re already doing this if you’re targeting the right keywords, meaning keywords which people are likely to search for when they’re interested in buying something that your business sells.

But if you use on-site advertising, such as by buying text ads, pay per click ads, video or banner ads on various websites, then you will need to be more careful as to whether you’re really displaying your ad to the right audience, meaning people who will visit your website because they’re likely to buy your products, as opposed to being simply curious. Many advertising networks now let you choose the sites on which your ads will be displayed. You can also target your advertising to specific geographic areas, such as cities and states, plus also select demographics such as age, gender, income level, etc. By thinking about who your buyers are and targeting the segment of the population that they represent, your ad campaigns will be a lot more likely to be successful.

• Track Your Results on a Consistent Basis

One important advantage that using online marketing brings you is that you can track your results and see how you’re doing, often in real time. However, there are still too many online marketers that aren’t taking full advantage of these tracking capabilities. There are free tools and scripts which you can install on your web server that will tell you exactly where the clicks to your website are coming from, how long a visitor has stayed on your website, which pages they have visited, etc. Since they’re available to you for free, you should definitely take advantage of them.

Many advertising networks also provide you with detailed information about how your ads are doing, such as which ads and keywords get the most clicks, etc. Use these metrics to determine which of your ad groups and advertising methods are performing at their best, so that you can focus on using these, and get rid of or make changes to ads or marketing methods that are simply causing you to waste time or money. Keep tracking how your ads are doing each day and at the end of the month, compare the statistics to see how each ad group has done. This will give you a much clearer picture of what works and what doesn’t work too well for you.

A new year has arrived and now would be the time to review how you do your online marketing and maybe make some changes for the coming year. It’s important to know that online marketing is an industry where change happens often. This is exactly the reason why online entrepreneurs need to adapt to the changing climate and review their strategies. Many are wondering about how the landscape of online marketing is going to change during this year. It should be known that changes aren’t usually drastic and take a few months to take effect. Here are some things that can be expected to happen during the year:

• Some E-Commerce Sites will Change their Business Models

2011 saw the rise of daily deal websites such as Groupon. There have also been many other sites that followed the same business model, some were targeted towards specific geographic areas, while others were centered around a specific line of product or services. The issue with these sites is that many merchants didn’t get the results that they wanted from them. Instead of getting customers that would be loyal and be willing to spend more at their business, they ended up with many freebie and discount seekers, which simply meant a net loss for them. As such, starting a daily deal website in 2012 is not really a good idea.

For those interested in promoting savings and deals, a return to more “classic” methods is expected to happen. Websites that would offer both printable and online coupons are expected to get more popularity. Also, websites which offer merchandise by a subscription model, such as book clubs and other sellers of items that consumers buy regularly are expected to grow, due to the fact that they can be quite profitable for the owners and also mean good savings for their subscribers.

• Social Media Marketing Will Rise Up and New Methods Will Become Popular

It probably won’t surprise anyone involved in the online marketing and advertising industries that social media marketing will get a lot of attention in 2012. New advertisers are expected to appear on social networking websites, including smaller businesses. Many small business owners, which are looking for targeted advertising options are going to consider advertising on social networking sites such as Facebook in order to get the customers that they need to keep their business running successfully. Another thing that attracts small businesses is that social media advertising can be less expensive than paid search advertising while remaining just as profitable if done correctly.

Social networking sites are considering new ad placement strategies, such as including ads in the middle of users news feeds. Also, advertising inside social media apps, such as games, dating plugins and other applications is expected to get some more attention from those who use social media to advertise. With all of this considered, if you don’t currently run social media ads, now would be a nice time to start doing so.

There are many things that you can do to have a successful email marketing campaign. Of course, getting good subscribers to your email list is one thing. The more subscribers you have, the more people you can deliver your message to. And the better quality these subscribers are, then the more likely they would be to buy something from your business. However, the quality of the list is only one part of being successful when it comes to using email for online marketing purposes. You also need to take some other elements under consideration.

• Use Quality List Management and Email Marketing Software

There are plenty of email marketing solutions out there, such as Aweber. These tools allow you to simplify your list management by automatically managing people opting in and out of your email list. Some also allow you to create sub groups within your email list, letting you segment your subscribers according to certain variables. Using software is quite useful if you have a large list, as it will automate many of the tasks and help you save time when you market by email.

• Choose the Subject Line Carefully

One thing that will determine whether or not a subscriber will actually read your email or not is the subject line. Sometimes, having a standard subject line such as “ACME Products – December Newsletter” will work, especially if your readers are looking forward to each newsletter as you provide them with news and updates that they find useful and relevant. You can also get more creative, of course, but then there are some things you need to keep in mind. Be as descriptive as possible in the subject line. Instead of “Super Promotion for You”, use a line such as “50% Off All Accessories and More”. This increases the chance that the reader will even bother opening your email. In any case, you need to consider the fact that your readers are probably on many other email lists as well, not just yours. So avoid using cheesy or deceptive lines such as “Your $1000 Payment is Waiting for You!”. Anyone who has used email has already seen this and this is a good way to get your mails ignored or marked as junk.

• The Message Content

Now, you need to focus on the actual content in your message. In order for your campaign to be an effective marketing tool, special attention needs to be paid to the message itself, so that your users will perform the action that you want them to, such as buying a certain product, reading one of the articles posted on your website or blog, requesting a quote or more information, clicking on an affiliate link for a product that you’re promoting, etc. Tomorrow, we will see some more information on how you can make sure that your message content is actually useful for your recipients and will give you a good chance of having the readers perform the action that you want them to do.

While there are many ways to promote your business online, email marketing remains one of the least expensive options and can be one of your best ways to keep in touch with those who are interested in your products. Even though social media marketing has gained a lot of ground in recent times, email marketing is still going strong according to surveys of online marketers and entrepreneurs. This is why building a strong email campaign is seen as a good step towards success for anyone that sells something through the internet. However, in order for a campaign to be successful, there are certain things that would need to be kept in consideration. A lot of the people that are having problems getting email marketing to work for them simply aren’t doing certain things right. Here are some tips which are used by the top online marketers out there that will help you achieve a good degree of success with it.

• Get a List Filled With Quality Subcribers

This is one of the most important pieces of advice that anyone could give regarding the topic of email marketing. If you don’t have anyone to send your emails to, obviously you won’t make any sales from email marketing. List building is the first step towards building your campaign. The best people that you can market to are the ones that have already purchased from you. The simple fact is that people, both in their personal lives and when doing business of any kind, are more comfortable dealing with those that they already know. Once a person has already established a relationship with you by buying from your site, chances are they will trust you if they were happy with the product or service that they got from you. During the purchase page, have a check mark that is on by default that would subscribe the buyer to your newsletter. That way, you can send them email with news about your new products and offer, or to promote some affiliate offers that may be useful to them.

Even if somebody doesn’t purchase anything from your site at the moment, it doesn’t mean that they won’t return in the future. This is why you should have an email capture box featured prominently on your site as well and not just use those who buy something from you as subscribers.

Avoid buying potential customer data from lead sellers if you can. Yes, there is a whole industry out there which sells leads in many niches, such as MLM programs, debt consolidation, finances, etc. The issue with these is that they are often of poor quality. Many of the people on these leads have already been contacted by other businesses. Some have opted in to have their information shared when they were signing up for a contest or filling out a paid survey of some sort, without truly having an interest in the product that you’re going to offer them. This doesn’t mean purchased leads are never profitable, just that they may not be as high quality as those you acquire yourself.

Previously, we’ve seen a few tips that would help you build a blog that you can use for online marketing. While deciding on the kind of content you will have on your blog, choosing a good hosting provider and monetizing your blog are important things to consider, there are also a few other tips you should keep in mind if you want your new blog to be a great tool that will help you make more money online. Here are some more of them:

Choose a Good Theme

When you create a blog by using a system such as WordPress or Joomla, you get thousands of options when it comes to themes for your new blog. A theme is basically an overall design, sort of like a template, that will determine the look and feel of your blog. Choosing a theme is relatively easy, as when you look through WordPress or Joomla, you will see thousands of free themes, as well as some paid ones that you can instantly apply to your blog. However, this is not something that you will want to rush into. It’s better for you to look carefully at all the designs available and select one that will work well for you.

The theme that you use will need to match well with your business and should be similar in appearance to your main website. Don’t hesitate to ask colleagues for advice on which theme will be better for you.

If you have some graphics and programming knowledge, you can design your own blog theme, or edit an existing one to make it match your needs better. You can also pay someone to make a custom made theme just for your blog, however the services of a professional theme designer could cost several hundreds of dollars.

Make Sure Your Blog is Inviting to the User and Easy to Navigate

One of the most common complaints that blog readers have is that the blogs seem to be filled with ads, opt in boxes and other monetization options, so much that it is difficult to actually see what link will lead them to an actual content page and which one is an ad. Of course, it’s important for you to make money from your blog and this is probably one of your primary objectives. But remember that the first purpose of the blog is a communication tool that you use to convey information to your visitors. Therefore, it needs to be easy to navigate for the user.

To determine whether you’re doing things right, create your blog and install your theme, make any customizations necessary and add a few test posts. Then show the result to some people to see whether they like it or not. Get some input on what they think should be changed or improved on your new blog. This will allow you to make some changes before you officially launch your blog.

You’ve probably heard about how effective it can be to build a blog to help you with your online marketing efforts. It is true that if you have a website, adding a blog can be very useful, as it will deliver interesting content that will be both useful for your readers and also will be well loved by search engines like Google. This will help you rank higher for your targeted keywords and ultimately lead to more money for you in the end. Building a blog is straightforward enough, but there are some things you would need to be aware of first. You will see some of the things you can do to make your blog a more effective tool.

Choosing a Good Blog Hosting Provider

If you already have a website, then your web host will probably allow you to add another website either on its own domain, or as part of a subdomain of your existing one. If you don’t then you should sign up for a basic shared hosting account to begin. Avoid using the free services like Blogger, as they’re not really a good choice if you want to make money from your blog. A paid hosting account gives you more flexibility and reliability over the content of your blog.

Figure out How You Will Make Your Blog Profitable

If you already have a website where you’re selling your own products, one of the ways to make your blog some money for you would be to link to the relevant pages of your main website from articles posted within your blog.

But there are also other ways that you can monetize a blog even if you’re not selling anything directly online. For example, you can include affiliate links to products that you provide information on in your blog, or that are related to its content. So if your blog deals with mobile phones, you can include mobile related affiliate offers on your blog. It is also possible to add some pay per click ads from a service such as Adwords or Bidvertiser, where you will get paid for every click that someone makes on one of the ads served on your blog.

Decide What Kind of Content You Will Have On Your Blog

Of course, you need to decide on a niche for your blog. But also, you will need to determine what you will be talking about more specifically in that niche on your blog. Your blog could, for example deal with new happenings in your niche/industry. Or you could provide product reviews of products that you sell on your own site or are an affiliate of. And then there is the possibility of putting up informational and educational content that’s related to your main niche. Of course, you can also combine all of these possibilities in your blog, but it is a good idea to know what kind of posts you will be making once the blog is up.

Many online marketing experts will tell you something like “the money is in the list”. Well, this is actually true if you have a mailing list of interested and targeted subscribers who actually see a need to buy the products that you are promoting. But having good subscribers and lots of them is not the only thing that need to be important for you if you have a mailing list and send out newsletters. Even having 100 000 subscribers on your list will not do you any good if they never click on any of your links or even read your messages. Here are a few tips that will help your interactions with your mailing list become more productive and profitable for you.

• Mind the Rate at Which You Send Out Your Messages

Unless you really need to send out daily updates for some reason (such as having a site that collects industry news each day), avoid sending out your newsletters too often. If they didn’t find anything too interesting in the first few days, many users will either unsubscribe or start ignoring your messages if you send them out too often. Remember, it is better to communicate with your list once a week and have some conversions on your products, rather than bombarding your subscribers with daily messages only to end up losing half of them before the month is over.

• Include a Calls to Action

This doesn’t only apply to items that you are selling, but also if you are just sending visitors to your website for something, such as to read one of your blog posts, or to watch a video. Including a call to action will make it more likely that they will go ahead and visit your site.

• Be Brief and Direct

Avoid making your email messages too long. People get dozens, sometimes hundreds of emails each day. They don’t always have the time to completely read each of them. If they see a wall of text, they just go into TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) mode and simply don’t pay any attention to the message. Keep your communications brief, direct and to the point. If you need to explain more or give additional information, link to a blog post or a page on your website. Websites and blogs are better made to convey longer information to your readers. Also, one of the goals of newsletters would be to get people on your site as well. From there, it is possible that they could buy something, or keep reading other things on your website for information on products and services that might be useful to them.

• Include Contact Information in Your Messages

It happens that subscribers sometimes forget who you are, especially if they are subscribed to many mailing lists. Include things such as your email address for questions, the URL of your main business website, as well as links to your social media profiles. It will remind your readers as to who you are and also will give a more “human” feeling to your message, with ways for people to contact you if they want to know more about something they saw in it.

One complaint that many online marketers have is that they don’t have the time to do all the things that they would want to in a day. We all know that being an internet marketer is sometimes not easy. Certain tasks, such as creating landing pages, writing articles, creating graphics and logos, etc. could be quite time consuming. However, there are ways around this which would allow you to save a lot of time and focus on your marketing efforts, rather than to get bogged down in the technicalities of doing the job.

The great thing about internet marketing is that there are many tasks which can be outsourced to others for a relatively low amount. You also don’t have to maintain a permanent staff on hand like in many other businesses (unless you actually want to). Most of the tasks related to running an online business can be outsourced to freelancers that you can find in online forums or on freelancing sites such as Fiverr or Odesk. Here are certain things that are easy to outsource:

* Content creation

If you do article marketing, or have a blog that you need updated regularly, you can have this part outsourced to a content writer that can deliver the content that you need based on your specifications.

* Landing page and website design

If you are an affiliate marketer, you probably run a few different campaigns at the same time. It can be quite hard to find time to design all the landing pages for your advertising campaigns. You can outsource this task as well. It is possible to have a freelancer with experience in online marketing and web design create landing pages for your offers based on your specifications, including lead capture boxes or affiliate links, etc.

* Graphic design

If you need graphics, logos, etc. designed, outsourcing the process can be an excellent idea. Sure, there are many programs out there such as Photoshop and GIMP that allow you to create your own graphics for your marketing materials, however learning how to use them to get professional looking results can be quite difficult if you don’t have much experienced and aren’t very skilled in the graphic arts. You can find people who can, for example, design a logo for your site, or edit a picture in Photoshop for just $5 on many freelancing websites.

* General administrative tasks

You can get a “virtual assistant” to help you with many of the aspects of running an online business. This can include things such as responding to customer inquiries, uploading new pages and videos to your web server or to various sharing sites, updating your social media pages with your recent promotions, etc. Having a virtual assistant usually doesn’t cost that much, depending on how many hours of work you would need done by them every week. On various freelancing sites, it is possible to hire someone for less than $10 an hour.

Craigslist is a popular and free online classified ads site. While it certainly isn’t as popular as say Google or Facebook, it is still one of the most popular sites on the internet, with millions of users from all around the world visiting it. This has given online marketers a lot of ideas on how to monetize all of this traffic. Unfortunately, Craigslist is not what it used to be when it comes to internet marketing and you have black hat marketers to thank for that. What some people did went far beyond just spamming CPA offers to downright lying to people such as promising them jobs or mortgages if they complete a CPA offer for a credit report or a biz opp. As a response to that, Craigslist has upped its security mechanism and has even posted warning in many of its sections that specifically mention affiliate marketing.

But this doesn’t mean that is is completely useless to online entrepreneurs. There are a few ways to use it for your online marketing efforts. Here are some of them:

• Promoting your e-commerce site

If you have a website that sells merchandise, then you can still use Craigslist to promote it. For example, if you sell clothes or electronics in your online shop, then you can post an ad in the proper section of Craigslist and get some traffic to it that way. Make sure to post in the right section, or your ad will be flagged down rather quickly. Also, don’t post the same ad in different cities at the same time. While there is nothing wrong with a global e-commerce site posting ads in multiple cities, remember that Craigslist is not mainly aimed at internet marketers, but rather for small, local businesses to post ads in the city where they operate.

• Providing services

If you offer some services that can be done over the internet, then you can use Craigslist to get some business too. For example, if you create websites for businesses and individuals, then you can put an ad in the right section to promote that. There are plenty of services that you can do over the internet and have your clients pay your by Paypal or another payment system. Some examples include: translation, writing, graphic design, flier/advertising design, promotional video creations and a whole lot more. If you want to appear more professional and therefore more trustworthy when providing these services, you can always create a simple “business” style website that gives details of what you do and your prices, as well as get a toll free phone number to get your clients to reach you. You can get one for a few dollars a month and then forward it to your cell phone, or just leave it to always go to voicemail. Here’s a tip to get more sales: put a special discount or coupon code in your ad and tell readers to mention it when they order.

Previously, we have seen some of the things that you can do to earn money online if you wanted a micro or mini online business. This would allow you to earn a part time income or some extra cash from your online marketing activities. While this might be satisfactory for some of you, what about those who would like to make more money, like a full time online business.

Of course, this is possible and has been done by many other people. Some regularly make six figures a year online. Some have even made millions. While doing this kind of money is definitely possible, it is not something that is easy to accomplish, no matter what you have heard. Sure, some of the tasks to do this may be “simple” from the technical point of view, but doing them correctly will still require some time, effort and commitment from you.

We will get into various methods to make money as part of a full time online business, but first let’s discuss some of the things that you will need in order to get started:

• Time

Running a full time online business will mean that you will need to spend at a minimum 30 hours per week on it. This is the bare minimum and depending on what you do, you may need to work more than that.

• Money

While there are certain types of business that can be started with little or even no money, this is the exception, rather than the rule in terms of full time online business. But it doesn’t mean that you will need hundreds of thousands to get started, either. You can start up slowly, and then use the money that you have made to grow your business. Basically, if you don’t have too much start up funding, you will need to be able to reinvest the profits that you have made at the beginning right away.

• The understanding that you will start out slowly

Many people would like to make $1000 a day from the very first day they have started their business. Of course, this is possible. Pretty much everything is in the online world. But this is an exception again. You need to accept the fact that it will take at least a few weeks, sometimes a few months, for your business to grow to the point where you will be truly making the amount of money that you had hoped for. Online business, while often very profitable, is not a get rich quick scheme. Those who think of it in this way are the first ones to get discouraged after they realize that becoming an instant millionaire is nothing more than a fantasy.

• Willingness to learn, take risks and experiment

You must be capable of learning on your own and be willing to try new methods and techniques to make money. You need to put the fear of failure behind you, otherwise you will never succeed.

There are many people who are new to internet marketing and the whole “make money online” scene and who naturally, have many questions about online earning opportunities. Here are some answers to questions that are frequently asked by newcomers.

• How do I earn money online?

There are plenty of opportunities, which are quite varied. The most common earning opportunities found online are:

• Becoming an affiliate of another merchant and getting a commission on sales that you get for them.
• Creating a web site, then selling ad space and getting paid for each click on the ads, for the number of views they get, or a fixed amount per day, week or month.
• Creating your own (digital or physical) product and selling it to customers.
• Reselling someone else’s product through your website or a marketplace like eBay or Amazon (buy low/sell high concept, similar to what a physical retail store does).
• Providing services to others (writing, web design, graphic design, translation, etc).

• How much money will I make? Are these ads that say I can make $1000 a day online true?

The amount of money you will earn will depend on what you do specifically. The earning potential is technically unlimited, but it will take a lot of work and dedication to reach good results. While some people can make $1000 a day, it will take much more than simply buying a product or signing up for some course to do the trick.

• Are all of these guides/courses/ebooks/membership sites about making money scams?

Some of them are, but the majority can’t really be considered a scam. Rather, they do give you some ideas and information that you can put to good use and start an online business of your choice. However, most of them stop short of holding your hand to the point of telling you exactly what to sell, exactly how to word your ads, etc. This is something you will need to figure out on your own.

• Do I need any startup money? Can I get started with nothing?

This depends on what you are trying to do to earn money. Some forms of online business can be started with absolutely $0, some others will require a small investment of $10 – $20 for a website and domain name, while others will need you to pay a few hundred or a few thousand for things like advertising, merchandise to re-sell, etc.

• Where are the best places to find information on earning money online?

If you do a Google, search, you will find that there are quite a few websites or blogs that provide useful information, but make sure that they are not simply a “front” that is trying to sell you some guide or get you to join a membership site. The best sources of free information remain internet marketing forums such as Digital Point, Warrior Forum and Wicked Fire.

Some people may be asking themselves if internet marketing is a good choice of career. Sure, the money that can be made online may seem attractive to many, but earning cash on the internet by promoting affiliate products or having your own products is not for everyone. Here are some thing to consider if you want to go into online marketing as a full time activity:

• Remember, you are building a business

Being an internet marketer is not a job. You will actually be working for yourself and thus have all the responsibilities that come with that. So you need to be a person that will always be motivated to do work without having someone giving them orders and telling them what to do or what not to do. The success of your business will depend on your ability to make the right decisions and you cannot blame someone else if things go wrong.

• You will need to learn things by yourself

When you decide to build an online business, there is a lot of information that you would need to look up, read and understand. There are very few actual college courses that deal with online business, and those that do typically just explain you what internet marketing is, but do not go into any real amount of detail on how you can build a successful business on the internet. So, if your idea of learning is sitting in a classroom and hearing some guy in a suit rephrase what is already in a textbook, then the online world is not for you. You must have the ability to learn everything you need by yourself, either by looking up information, or through experience.

• There is no fixed salary

Remember again, you are working for yourself and not for someone else. Therefore, you are the one that will determine how much or who little you get paid. In certain jobs, you might be able to get paid just for showing up and loafing around for a few hours. This is not the case here. How hard you work and how creative you are will have a definite impact on how much you get paid.

• You need to be able to embrace change

The online world is constantly changing, with new earning opportunities always emerging. In order to maximize your profits, you will need to take advantage of these opportunities as soon as they appear. Just remember, about 6 years ago, social media marketing was a relatively new concept that barely anyone took seriously. Now, many businesses use social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to stay in touch with clients and to acquire new ones.

What will be the next wave of change in online marketing? Some say it could be sites geared towards mobile devices, others think that the integration of various devices, such as internet enabled televisions could change the landscape significantly. No matter what happens, you need to be on top of your game and be among the first to spot golden opportunities.

When it comes to online advertising options for a local business, there are plenty of choices that are open to you. Some of these options are completely free, while others will require you to spend some money and thus create an advertising budget. But one of the advantages of online advertising is that it is not as expensive as other methods, such as television or radio ads. It is also possible to very specifically target the audience that you want to reach, so that only people who have a high chance of being interested in your products end up seeing your ads.

One of these options is media buying. Now, many of you who are not familiar with online marketing terms may wonder what media buying consists of. Basically, it means that you will be buying advertising space on another website and paying for these ads according to different business models. Here are the ones that are the most commonly used in the media buying industry:

Fixed fee – You pay a certain fee to have your ad displayed in a permanent position on a certain website. This fee could be for a day, a week, two weeks, a month or even longer. Usually with this option, your ad is not rotated, meaning that it stays in one spot on the website for the entire time that you have paid for it. The costs will vary depending on the ad location as well as the traffic that the site receives. As such, the price for a daily ad on a site with a moderate amount of traffic could be as little as $4, while one on a site receiving tens of thousands of daily visitors (such as a popular news site in your city), a daily ad could cost you $1000 or even more.

CPM (or cost per views) – Here, you will pay a certain amount for every thousand visitors that view your ad. Every view is counted, so you will pay the same amount whether a visitor clicks your ad to go to your site or not. Once again, the amount you pay will vary on the popularity of your site, as well as the location of the site where your ad is put in. Ads which are displayed in prominent parts of the site tend to cost more.

CPC (or Cost Per Click) – This is similar to pay per click (or PPC) ads that you see on Google sponsored results. You will pay an amount for each person that clicks on your ad and is thus redirected to your site. Costs will vary depending on the site where you are advertising. They can be as low as $0.01/click up to $1.00 or more for each click you receive.

Tomorrow, we will explore more details about online media buying, such as which websites you can advertise on and the types of ads that you can create for your business.

When we talk about internet marketing, many people instantly seem to think that it is related to affiliate offers and building a website to host some Adsense ads. Sure, these things are what many people do to earn money on the internet, but they are not the only components of online marketing. If you have a local business, you can use the internet to draw more clients and above all, to get your business known in the community. There are various options for you to use to get the word out. Yesterday, we have talked about local SEO and your options for doing it. But search engine traffic is not the only way for you to get visitors to your website and clients for your business. Let’s examine a few other ways to get what you are looking for.

Getting Traffic

Whether you are pushing affiliate offers, or have your own, physical small business, you want traffic to your site. Traffic simply means visitors that look at your website. There are many ways to get this traffic: SEO (which we talked about yesterday), online classified ad sites, social media sites and targeted media buying. We will explore these one by one to see what the advantages (and sometimes drawbacks) are of using these methods. That way, you will be able to make a decision on how to advertise your business online.

Classified Ads Sites (Craigslist, Gumtree, Backpage, Kijiji and dozens more).

There are various sites which let you place a classified ad, which is similar to what you would see in a newspaper. There are some main, worldwide sites such as Craigslist, but there are also some local sites which could be geared towards people in your locality. For example, in French Canada where I live, the website Annonce123.com is very popular with people and attracts a lot of local traffic.

In order to maximize your chances of success and to take the highest advantage of the sites it is recommended that you:

• Post on all the sites. That’s right, both the national sites which have a section for your city and the smaller, local sites (if present in your locality). Posting an ad on these sites is free and takes 2 or 3 minutes. Remember, even if you only get 10 views a day for your ad, one of these viewers could be your next biggest customer. Say if you own a car rental place, the viewer could be a diplomat from Monaco on a temporary assignment in your city, who will rent your most expensive car for 6 months. Think of the money you will make with him. Sure, this is rare… but you never know… and if he doesn’t see your ad, well he never know your car rental business existed and use a competitor instead.
• Make you ad look interesting. Your ad should stand out and be engaging to the users. Thus, use a good title and also, make sure that you use proper spelling and grammar in the ad. Believe me, it helps.
• Use the “featured” or “upgrade” options if possible. Many sites, for a small fee of (varies from $0.50 to a few dollars) will let your ad be “featured”. This means that it will be either on top of all the other ads, or will have highlighting that will draw attention to it. If you have a few dollars to spare, use this option.

Tomorrow, we will examine social media sites and how they can be useful for marketing your local business on the internet.