Purchasing links back to your site is another great way to get your site noticed. One really easy way to do that is through sites that offer directory listings for free, or for a small fee.

One such directory I found recently that is definitely worth mentioning is LifetimeTextLink.com

On their site you simply place a bid for ranking in your alphabetical category. The top 5 bidders on the site are listed on the main page. Then, each category is listed by bid price, as well.

As an added bonus, you don’t have to be the only one bidding on your placement. They provide code which allows you to place a link on your website and your loyal visitors are welcome to bid a couple bucks for your site to boost it’s ranking.

It’s well with checking out and certainly worth a few of your marketing dollars.

It may seem like the most obvious thing in the world, right? But, you’d be surprised at how many people see a quick buck to be made from an industry they know nothing about and then jump head first in to trying to sell in that space. The problem is, in order to maximize your potential for success, you must be able to “talk the talk.” That doesn’t mean you know the top 5 buzz words because you heard them on a radio or TV commercial. You need to be able to converse about the finer points of a subject with advertisers, suppliers, drop shippers, customers and so many others along the way. “Winging it” will only get you so far.

The same goes, to a little lesser extent, when it comes to marketing. I have found that I have been way more successful when I promote products that I have actually used. This is why I tell everybody I can to check out things like Spam Arrest. They have an excellent product that I’ve been using for over a year and they have one of the best referral programs around. I know with certainty that when a friend of mine signs up for Spam Arrest, they are going to be getting a good product and they are going to be happy with it. This is the main concept of Viral Marketing. You tell your friends about products you like. We all do that in our everyday life anyway, right? You find a good place to eat, you tell your friends. This is the same concept… except there’s a referral bonus attached this way.

The next time you are looking to place a banner ad on your site, you may want to first consider using a Chitika eMiniMall banner. It’s run with a bit of javascript and comes in enough different sizes that there will most likely be one to fit the space you are loking to fill. One of the big selling points for me is the fact that you can place several keywords in the code and the script will randomly choose a product from the keywords you’ve selected. Chitika offers a list of keywords that will surely fit most any site’s content and their pay-per-click value is right up there with the best of ‘em.

To see a sample of what the eMiniMall look like, check out geeeek.com where I’m using the 468×60 version with the following keywords: “digital cameras”, “stereo”, “sony playstation”, “dell laptop”

Assuming you already have sites on the internet, it’s more than likely you are trying to make some sort of income from them. You may want to make a career out of it or you may just want some beer money. Either way, getting started can be the hardest part. Where to go? What to do? How do you promote without going broke doing it?

I received a copy of the book, Money for Content and your Clicks for Free. I’ve not yet finished the book, but I’m telling you, if you are looking to make any sort of income and would like a little bit of a roadmap, this book is definitely a place to start. It’s written by JD Frazer, the same guy who writes userfriendly.org. It’s not “laugh out loud” funny, but, it is written with a humorous slant which makes it a pretty easy read. It’s not like sitting and reading a text book.

When my buddy asked if I was interested in having a wordpress.com blog, at first I told him no. I already have two blogs and one of them gets ignored pretty regularly. If I didn’t have something at least seamingly interesting to write about, why even start. It would just sit on my list of things to “get around to” and would be more of a burden than anything else.

“What to do with another blog?” was the question that ran through my head for a couple days. Then, sitting at work it hit me. I’ll explain in a sec. First, some backstory…

For those of you who don’t know me, I recently got moved back to the marketing side of our business after being on the tech side for quite a while. My job is to find ways to drive traffic to sites through the creation of content portals. The portals need to generate repeat traffic by having solid content that is updated on a regular basis. I have a copywriter who is writing our own content which we posting and syndicating. I’m also looking in to every sort of free, but relavent, links I can get from other sites… Plus, pretty much any other sort of “technical” marketing angle I can come up with… thus the answer to the main question… “I’ll blog about ways to market web sites for newcomers.”

So welcome. I hope I’m able to help you reach your marketing goals! Or, at least push you in the right direction…