Elements of Free Advertising: Part 2
No matter if you are using free advertising or paid advertising all online advertising is composed of four basic elements.
1. You need an ad
2. You need a website address (URL) to point the ad to or an email address
3. You will need to prepare for the posting process
4. You will need a location to place the ad
Most affiliate programs have pre-written ads for you to place at various ad sites. You will need to read the guidelines for each program to make sure you follow them. Use the URL given to point the buyer to the appropriate website. If you have a website of your own, some affiliates will point their ads to that URL.
For most people writing these ads is the hardest part of affiliate marketing. Even though most programs have their ads set up, there are still some that don’t. Take a moment to thoroughly check out the website you want to promote, then take a few key points and you will have your ad. Write them down in notepad, and play around with the wording until you like the ad. Then try it out. Just remember it is not rocket science, if you have ever written an email to a friend you can write an ad. It really is that simple!
FREE Advertising-Does it Work? Part 1
People come to affiliate marketing from many different circumstances and all walks of life. While the more fortunate have significant money to invest in advertising their new business, some have no money to invest at all. Some time ago I read about an affiliate with a large company being homeless. He would go daily to the local library and access the Internet in order to work his business. He was determined to improve his life and the last I heard he did through patience and perseverance!
As with all things, the more you have to invest, the easier and quicker it will be for you to build your business. But affiliate marketing can be done successfully without any financial investment, if you must approach it that way. I have used a variety of free advertising methods for years and have been able to grow my business steadily.
For those who do have money to invest in paid advertising, you should learn the ropes of free advertising. The learning experience is valuable and will help you be more efficient with paid advertising. Also, learning the ropes of free advertising will enable you to teach your downline members who do not have money to invest in advertising.
Nancy Kraska Owner of Home Work For You, The Work At Home Connection. Avid reader. A food-alcoholic. Sometimes Crafter.
Stay tuned for Part #2—Elements of Free Advertising
Free Advertising and Web Site Submission
Are You Getting Enough Traffic?
On any business forum you will find someone asking “what is the best way to get traffic to my site?” With the number of websites now on the Internet, it is a challenge to get quality traffic to your website. And as we all know without traffic, you get no sales.
It is not impossible to get traffic, but it can be time consuming as there are more ways to get traffic than not. Here are some of the most common methods that I have used and had success using.
1. Search Engine Optimization – The hardest part of building your own website but the most important. Search engine traffic is usually targeting people of a certain demographic that would be interested in what you are selling. For instance, I am selling work at home opportunities, so I would not have a website filled with sites that have nothing to do with working from home. Do your research and find out what terms people are using to search for whatever it is you are selling, then put those terms in your meta tags and throughout your website. People who are searching with these terms will look at your site and either buy something or “bookmark” it to come back to at a later date.
Is Your Business Turning A Profit?
In a couple of weeks the children will be back in school and a few weeks after that mothers will start thinking more about what they want to do with their “free” time. So some start to look on the Internet in hopes of finding that perfect part-time job, that can be done while the children are at school or sleeping.
The only problem with this concept that I have come across is that a lot of mothers with businesses find that they have no idea whether or not their business is making any money.
Most “newbies” jump in with both feet and have no idea what it is they are suppose to do to make money. Or they simply do not have any cash flowing through to make money. At the end of the 6 months or even a year, they sometimes realize they have spent more than they have made. Then usually I hear the cries of “It is a scam!” I am here to tell you not everything on the Internet is a scam; they are quite a few legitimate work at home jobs or businesses.
If you don’t know alot about finances, and the vast majority of people don’t, then how can you determine that your business is making money? If you don’t’ keep track of advertising and sales-then how do you know how to improve? And how do you plan on staying business? Here are some tips to help you answer these questions:
Free Methods of Marketing Your Home Business
Now that you have decided you want to work at home, you are not sure how to get started. Am I right? First of all you are not alone. So take a deep breath and live your dream.
If you plan on your home business being a success, and I am sure you do, then you need to learn to market it effectively. Meaning figure out if you want to market it only online, offline, use only free methods, use paid advertising or both. How do you market your business?
In this article I will concentrate on only free methods, because frankly that is how I started.
If you don’t already have a website, it is best to have one of your own to market. Don’t panic, if I did it, you can do it. A domain name can be purchased online anywhere from $1.99 (Go Daddy) to $7.95 and up. Pick a name that is relevant to your business. For instance if you are selling affiliate work at home programs like I do, then you do not want a name like HorseRUs. That is fine if you are selling saddles and bridles, but not home business opportunities. After you settle on a domain name, you need to find a hosting service for your new website. This too can be done as cheaply as $4.95 a month (Ipower) and I have seen it as high as a yearly cost of over $500. Stick with the cheaper plans, believe me, all you need is someone to host your site on the web, you will be doing all the promotions, changes to your website, and anything else that needs attention.
