Insurance and Credit

Most online marketing “gurus” focus exclusively on getting traffic to your blog or website from sources like Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon and Digg. But before you jump into their strategy, consider a few of the following flaws with mass-media user-generated websites like MySpace and Facebook:

* Myspace and Facebook have a huge number of dead pages – So many users have “been there, done that” that they do not login to there accounts anymore. You would basically be marketing to the wall. * Myspace and Facebook has implemented numerous safety guards – They have made changes which are hypersensitive against spam, and they label any outgoing links as spam or potential phishing sites. This puts a scare into people using these services, and causes them to apprehensive to clicking any outgoing links to your site. * Social Networking is about dead – When these services were new, they were great. While you may find some amount of success with these sites, your effectiveness rate would be about 30% of what you would normally expect.

Unfortunately, that is the sad truth.

While Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is a great way to promote your website, SEO takes a long time to take effect. It can take years for your site to achieve natural, organic results in the form of targeted traffic.

Perhaps the fastest and quickest way to drive traffic to your website using the search engines is through using pay-per-click advertising services, or PPC. PPC allows you to place an ad on the search engines based on the keywords which people search. You only pay for advertising when someone clicks through your ad. Three of the top PPC programs are:

Google Adwords Yahoo Search Marketing MSN Adcenter

There are other services such as Miva which is used often; and, incidentally, Facebook has an excellent PPC program, which seems to be highly targeted — it laser targets your potential visitors by age, interests, location, and much more. This ensures that the right audience is seeing your ads — maximizing exposure — and providing you with quality, fresh leads.

Rates for PPC traffic are always a little different, depending on the quality of traffic, the website purchased at, the service being used and the keyword chosen. For example, traffic targeted towards people interested in “credit cards” would be much more expensive than traffic targeted towards people interested in “elephants” – to use an extreme comparison.

You pay the price of the ad only when someone actually clicks on your ad. The goal is to figure out how much your website makes per targeted visitor, and then purchase traffic at a rate slightly less than how much you make. You’ll instantly turn a profit. An ROI of anything is justified because the entire process is automatic.

If you are looking for a quick way to drive traffic to your website using the search engines, PPC is the most obvious route to take in your marketing endeavors.

Can you make a living on earning Adsense commissions? Adsense to be a great way to a few extra dollars each and every day but certainly is not going to make you a ton of money. Ask website owners today about their earnings and you’ll find only a small handful making a substantial income. Ive learned how to increase my Adsense commissions over time and will share with you all Ive learned.

Your Adsense revenue is dependent on a number of factors including which ads you display, where you display them, and how often. Here are some factors to consider before you place your next Adsense ad. Let’s begin with ad placement. Certain locations tend to be more successful than others. Google has produced a heat map that illustrates the ideal placing on a sample page layout. All other things being equal, ads located above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.

While this suggested map is useful as a positioning guideline, I strongly recommend putting your users first when deciding on proper ad location. Think about their behavior on different pages, and what will be most useful and visible to them. You’ll find that the most optimal ad position isn’t always what you expect on certain pages.

For example, on pages where users are focused on reading a specific article, ads that are placed directly below the end of the content tend to do very well. It’s almost as if users finish reading the content and ask, “What can I do next?” Targeted ads can answer that question and encourage users to take action.

Ad formats. Different types of ads perform better than others. This largely depends on page content and organization. Many advertisers find that large rectangles in content areas work best, while leader boards produce less revenue. Other ad sizes like sky scrappers are usually the worst performers even though they command the largest amount of space. The key is to experiment and measure the results to see which ad sizes and formats work best optimizing revenue.

The color of your ads. When ads blend into your content, click through rates can be improved, but sometimes ads that contrast with your web site colors work best. To improve your results, test a variety of ad colors to determine if different palettes generate better results. Short of testing the actual palettes offered by Adsense, there is really no other way to determine ad effectiveness.

Quantity of Adsense Units. As a rule of thumb, web sites are allowed a total of three ads, one set of ad links, and a Google search box per web page. Find the right number of ads for your site based on the resulting look of your page. Sometimes, less is more. Users going to your page and reading your content may ignore the banner or rectangle at the top of the page, but may click on the ad at the bottom of the article. So find something that’s appealing and go from there.

Test the variables noted above and see which combination for variables work best for your website or blog. Not all sites displaying Adsense ads generate significant results. Even if a website gets lots of visitors but they aren’t interested in looking for ways to spend their money, they won’t necessarily respond to the ads displayed on your site.

When you see that your competition has large amounts of traffic and you barely have any be aware that they are most likely using PPC advertising. This is one of the most effective forms of marketing around and is used by many. If you are not taking advantage of this promotion you are leaving money on the table.

When you adopt PPC advertising, you shall have to pay for a service that shall show your ad on relevant websites. Your ad shall appear as a link placed as a banner either across the top or along the side of the webpage, enabling viewers to see your ad but without this interfering with the content of the site that they are viewing.

The important component of PPC advertising is its ability to provide targeted marketing; thus, your ad appears only on websites that are similar or relevant to the products or services that you offer. This targeting is usually defined and fixed through the match between keywords and other related factors, and allows you to receive traffic that is already known to be interested in what you offer.

One of the great things about PPC advertising is that you only pay if your visitor clicks on your ad. If your reader does not take action you do not have to pay. On the other hand if your reader does indeed click through to your site you will pay whatever you bid for the keyword. If you want to keep your budget in check try placing a daily cap on expenses and of course monitor clicks.

When searching for PPC engines you will most likely opt for Google Adwords. Google Adwords will give you the best service and your ad will get the best exposure. Added to this is the fact that those who use this service will be already searching for products and services. This makes them far more willing to act on your advertisements.

PPC advertising will help you to promote your website and distinguish it from the competition. However to really take advantage of this method of marketing be sure to understand exactly how it works and how it will help your business. PPC advertising can be very profitable only if you know how to use it.