Are You Feeding Your Business On Junk Food?

Internet Marketing can be a lot like your diet. You can either feed your business on red meat or satisfy your cravings by feeding on sweets. One increases your business strength, and one is just filling your time with empty calories.

If you are marketing your products using proven methods from which you get regular predictable results, then you are going to enjoy a healthy growth in your business.

On the other hand, if you are using techniques that promise rewards, but you just aren't seeing the results, then you may be eating marketing junk food!

Junk Food of Choice?

In my case, the junk food was free traffic exchanges. It's instant gratification to see the counters click up the number of websites surfed. You get to enjoy the "credits earned" by surfing innumerable pages. I ordered almost every free traffic exchange on the menu. After all, as a beginner, I was hungry to get my site seen by lots of people. And free exchanges taste good. They are easy to join and they fill you up. (Your time, that is.)

Well, I was gulping empty calories! I learned through trial and error that most people using the free exchanges are also on a tight budget. So in theory, free advertising sounds great. But everyone else is sharing the same dessert. I got lots of opt-ins but no significant sales.

The Marketing Diet Plan

That's when I began to limit my "sweets" and concentrate on real food. My marketing results were much stronger when I limited my use of the free exchanges and learned the power of other forms of free traffic generation. I haven't sworn off dessert altogether. Free traffic exchanges are good when consumed with discipline. But it is best to balance your marketing diet:

• Choose two or three traffic exchanges which have produced some results. Commit to stay active in these, rotating an hour or two a week to keep up with what is being promoted and how. Resist the temptation to surf for more than 3 hours a week. Spend your time developing the following advertising methods.

• Open an account with one of the search engine marketing pages. It is free and easy to start. Just set your monthly budget to an amount you can afford while you learn what works. You pay only for the times someone clicks on your ad for more information. Thus, it is called pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising.

• Tell about your product in words! Write an article to let everyone know how they will benefit from your kind of product. Remember that the article is not a direct sales letter, but you can include a link to your site in your signature, or resource box. Sign up for a free account at one of the e-zine directories. You will learn as you go.

• Make a name for yourself in one or two of the forums. People will begin to trust your advice when you are actively helping others through forum discussions. It is also a great way to get your own questions answered. To find a forum, just search on the phrase "internet marketing forums."

If you are new to internet marketing, I highly recommend that you start using the diet. You will find that your business develops more quickly because you aren't dependent on one method. It also helps to get a handle on your time. Free traffic exchanges are fine, but you must develop skills in the other, more powerful, forms of advertising.

Here's to your health!