Website Marketing : using affiliates

Successful website marketing is easy if you have the financial backing, the time and the know-how. However, few businesses have either the time or resources to put into comprehensive search engine optimization and rely on pay per click (PCC) advertising and associated affiliate programs to drive traffic to their sites. Paying web publishers to place a targeted advertisement on their site in order to drive traffic to yours can make great financial sense.

One of the main advantages of this type of website marketing is that there is no need for an Internet marketing company. You can set up the system yourself, it's simple to use and it's a guaranteed way to increase traffic to your site. PPC and affiliate deals don't come cheap though, and it's easy to get caught up in bidding wars for particular keywords, driving the price of your campaign through the roof.

The easiest and one of the most cost effective, ways to get your ads onto relevant pages is to apply to Google Adwords. Adwords website marketing can be targeted to specific countries or locations and multiple campaigns can simultaneously market different products. Your ads appear almost instantly and since Google ranks ads on their click through rate (CTR) rather than the highest bid, you can control the amount spent on your campaign. The key is to refine your keywords so that they become specific to the product or service you wish to sell. Although your ads will appear less frequently with a specific keyword, they will be much more relevant to page viewers and consequently your click through rate will be higher. By using Google's free tracking system you can follow the success of your ads and adjust them accordingly.

Another route to take is to use affiliate program resellers such as Commission Junction and Trade Doubler. These two giants of the website marketing world dominate the industry in the US and Europe and supply comprehensive performance-driven advertising solutions. These affiliate program resellers facilitate relationships between web publishers and online retailers and simply act as a shop window for online advertisers wanting to 'buy' space from web developers.

In website marketing as in other media, the best advice is to spread your risk and advertise as widely as possible. Don't rely on one affiliate deal to do all the work for you, search around for the best deals for your specific product or service, track your performance and make the most of the opportunities available to you.