Five Steps to Internet Success

The concept is simple, write a brief 200-500 word article on a subject related to your niche or in a topic of interest to your target market. Make sure the article offers real value. Do not include links to sales pages in the body of the article. These links should only be added to the resource box or "About the author" section. Post your articles in several free article directories. This is key as your first step for several reasons. First, it's 100% free. Second, it helps to establish you as an expert or authority in your field. Third, it creates backlinks to your site (which help improve your ranking). And lastly, it is permanent, on-going publicity.

Create accounts in sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace. You may create these accounts even before you start your article marketing. But, DO NOT, start advertising on these sites when you first join. Focus on building relationships and giving value to the communities. Do this while you work on your article marketing. You may post links to your articles, as the information you provide through your writing may help get you noticed as someone of value. BUT, do NOT post your first link to your sales page until you have been in the community for at least a couple of weeks. Even then, make sure no more than 15% of your posts are invitations to your sales pages.

While sites like YouTube and Viddler are considered part of the social media umbrella, I consider video marketing to be a whole separate enterprise, because it requires a different approach on your part. Video marketing is by far the fastest and easiest way to get branded online (become known as an expert and someone of value). But, it will require that you take the time to create, upload and post videos. Live videos will also require that you find a quiet, and appropriate moment for filming. Once you get used to it, though, it will become your best friend in marketing terms. Once more, though, remember that you are looking to provide value. So, don't make your videos one continuous sales pitch.

This is the first paid advertising I suggest. It will cost you to advertise in this manner, but it will also give you a chance to be upfront about your selling, and you don't really have to worry about blatantly placing links to your sales pages in front of people. It can also be a lot more immediate in terms of results. When choosing Ezines (online magazines) to post your ads on, make sure that you subscribe first, just to see the quality of the ezine. Also, make sure you talk to a live person, preferably the editor, BEFORE paying for your ad. Place only "solo ads" on ezines, as they are the ones with the best ROI. List Builders can also be a great paid tool. The work similarly to email marketing. The ones I recommend are "List Joe" and "Viral URL". Make sure to think of your target market as you write copy for your ads.

PPC is without a doubt, the fastest, most effective way to get traffic to your site and, consequently, sales. It is also, however, the fastest and easiest way to lose all your money, if you don't know what you are doing. This is why I advise saving this strategy to last. Basically, all PPC is is a way to pay for placement on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Google AdWords is by far the most effective, but it is also the most expensive. The cool thing about PPC is that you only pay for clicks to your link. So, you are in a sense paying only for unique visitors to your site. The trick lies in knowing how to pick the right kinds of keywords so that you can get sufficient traffic, without paying an arm and a leg for each click, and in choosing keywords that will convert visitors to sales most often.