Text Links

Text links are much simpler than banner ads. They’re also less eye-catching and less sexy. There’s no funky animation, no neat Flash, just a few well chosen words often stuck at the side of a web page. But that doesn’t mean they’re not effective.

In fact, to some extent, text links are the unsung heroes of online marketing. They don’t get half the attention they deserve, but they can do an excellent job bringing visitors to a site.

The first point to bear in mind about text links is that they’re tough to write. You might have just 50 characters to make your sales pitch. That’s about the length of that sentence, so you’re going to have to be pretty creative in what you say. That’s the downer. On the plus side though, text links are amongst the most popular form of promotion amongst Internet users. They don’t get in the way like popups, and they’re often mistaken for content so they’re actually read. And because they’re written into the site’s HTML, you know that each page view means a real exposure.

They’re also cheap. You might have to pay a flat-fee or a costper-click, but there’s much less risk than with banner ads. If you know how much traffic the site’s getting, you can figure out in advance if it’s worth your while.

Best of all though, you can sometimes arrange for free links with partners in return for a similar placement on your own site. That doesn’t just give you free advertising… It also helps your search engine placements.

I use a lot of text links to promote my sites, but I wouldn’t rely completely on them alone. But, in terms of effectiveness and cost, text links are very powerful.

Classified Ads

Offline, classified ads are relatively cheap little ads that appear at the back of newspapers or magazines. They work well if you’re trying to sell your old Ford Escort or you’re looking for a new home for your old sofa. Offline classified ads can even work well promoting a variety of online products and services.

Online, things are a little different. But not hugely different. I post ads on classified sites online, but I don’t expect to make a lot of money from them. What I do expect though is an opportunity to test my headlines and ad copy before I start spending hard cash on AdWords, other PPC’s and text links.

That’s why I don’t bother with the dollar ads. If I’m going to spend marketing money, I’d rather give it to a search engine than a classified ad site. You’ll typically get a much better return with PPC advertising and you know exactly what you are paying for each visitor.

But there are places where you can place free ads online, and you can actually do this on some of the really big sites like AOL and Yahoo. Even if I don’t make many sales, the fact that I’m getting my product in front of so many people for free certainly doesn’t do me any harm.

This is an excerpt from Stone Evans’ great new free ebook “Dotcomology”,
The Science Of Making Money Online. You can download all 325 pages for
free here right now: Dotcomologyl