How to Succeed at Online Advertising

Online advertising is very accessible, fairly inexpensive, and completely doable no matter what kind of business you have. Anyone from independent business owners to large corporations benefit from online advertising and the strategies remain the same no matter how much money you have to spend on your advertising campaigns. In fact, some strategies are even free.

Since it is easy to get started, however, people often jump in without having a real idea of what works and what doesn't when it comes to internet advertising. It is important to understand that typical offline strategies won't work on the internet but when companies get started, they often make the classic mistakes.

Advertising online still needs to add value.

Offline, advertising strategies center around brand recognition and bombardment of the senses. Television commercials, radio spots, billboards, ads in the newspaper - these offline strategies are designed to promote visibility of the brand.

Try do do that online, however, and you'll turn people off or worse, be labeled a "spammer".

Your online presence as a business and a brand needs to center around the idea of "adding value". People visit the internet to serve a purpose. The main motivators are to buy something, be entertained, or to search for information.

Don't be fooled by the "buy something" motivator, though. Most people research what they are going to buy first and will only make a purchase when they are confident that they have all the information they need.

So, when putting together your online advertising campaigns should keep these points in mind and work with them, not against them.

Here are the strategies that people use when putting together their campaigns. These elements are in place no matter what the campaign is. This includes free strategies and also ones that cost money. Here is a list of strategies.

List of Free Strategies:

• Free ad posting sites
• Article marketing
• Banner swapping
• Free directory listings

List of Paid Strategies:

• Pay Per Click campaigns
• Newsletter ads
• Solo ads on newsletters
• Ad space on websites and social networks

This list is by no means exhaustive. I've probably missed some strategies. But, it should give you an idea of what's out there.

Keyword Research

This is an important element of online advertising. If the site is properly optimized, you'll eventually get natural traffic from the search engines. When you put campaigns in place, you'll also target certain keywords which will give them a higher visibility in the search engines.

Landing Pages

You sell yourself short if you direct your ad campaigns to your home page only. A good landing page is designed to have the user perform a certain action. Think about what the ad campaign should accomplish and then create a landing page on the site designed to optimize the rate of response. The landing page also makes it easier to track.

Track Campaigns

Each online campaign you create should be tracked using various analytical techniques. Your company may have software in place to do this. Otherwise, you can use a product like Market Samurai or a free tool like Google Analytics.
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You can use social media for online advertising to help enhance your brand and provide a way for customers, clients, and leads to interact with you on a personal level.

The big sites to work with are

• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Google +
• Linked In

If you don't have a strong presence on these sites, you are missing out on what they can offer. For the most part, these social sites help keep your business on people's radars. If you interact with them on a personal level, they will be more likely to keep you in mind when they are ready to buy.