If you’ve never really done much advertising and relied mostly on networking and word-of-mouth, how can you figure out where to start?

The first thing you must do is calculate your minimum and maximum allowable ad budgets:

• Step 1: Take 10 percent and 12 percent of your projected annual gross sales and multiply each by the markup made on your average transaction. In this first step, it’s important to remember that we’re talking about gross markup here, not margin. Markup is gross profit above cost, expressed as a percentage of cost. Margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of the selling price. Sell an item for $150 when it only costs you $100, and your markup is 50 percent.

  Your margin, however, is only 33.3 percent. This is because the same $50 gross profit represents 50 percent of your cost (markup,) but only 33.3 percent of the selling price (margin.) Most retail stores in America (carpet, jewelry and so on) operate on an average markup of approximately 100 percent, some operate on as little as 50 percent markup and others add as much as 200. More expensive items, such as cars, recreational vehicles and houses, typically carry a markup of only 10 to 15 percent.

• Step 2: Deduct your annual cost of occupancy (rent) from the adjusted 10 percent of sales number and the adjusted 12 percent number.
• Step 3: The remaining balances represent your minimum and maximum allowable ad budgets for the year. At this point in the calculation, you may learn that you’ve already spent your ad budget on expensive rent, or you might also learn that you should be doing a lot more advertising than you had previously suspected.

Now let’s calculate an ad budget. Assume that your business is projected to do $1 million in sales this year, you have a profit margin of 48 percent, and your rent is $36,000 per year. The first thing to do is calculate 10 percent of sales and 12 percent of sales ($100,000 and $120,000, respectively).

Second, we must convert your 48 percent profit margin into markup, because markup is what we’ve got to have to make this formula work. Most business owners know their margin by heart, but never their markup.

To make the conversion from margin to markup, simply divide gross profits by cost. Dividing $480,000 (gross profits) by $520,000 (hard cost) shows us that a 48 percent margin represents a markup of 92.3 percent. Bingo.

Now we multiply $100,000 times 92.3 percent to see that our adjusted low budget for total cost of exposure is $92,300. Likewise, we multiply $120,000 times 92.3 percent to get an adjusted high budget for total cost of exposure of $110,760.

From each of these two budgets, we must now deduct our $36,000 rent. This leaves us with a correctly calculated ad budget that ranges from $56,300 on the low side to a maximum of $74,760 on the high side.

Most advertising salespeople will tell you that “5 to 7 percent of gross sales” is the correct amount to budget for advertising, but don’t you believe it. It simply isn’t possible to designate a percentage of gross sales for advertising without taking into consideration the markup on your average sale and your rent.

Yes, expensive rent for a high-visibility location is often the best advertising your money can buy, since a business with a good sign in a high-visibility location will need to advertise significantly less than a similar business in an affordable location.

To prove this, just look at the example above and change the rent to $75,000 per year. In this case, the ad budget would range from $17,300 to $35,760, representing just 1.7 to 3.5 percent of sales.

The formula you’ve just learned is the only one that reconciles your ad budget with your rent as well as the profitability of your average sale. Use it!

Setting up an e-commerce site couldn’t be simpler. Simply pick one of the following that’s right for you, log on and get started.

Going Solo

Many experts and entrepreneurs believe that building your own website is a no-brainer, thanks to the inexpensive, easy-to-use and sophisticated e-commerce services available.

“If you’re a one to two-person firm, [you have] someone on your staff [who] can design a website and you only sell a few products, there’s no reason not to do it yourself, particularly with the out-of-the-box solutions available nowadays,” says John Jantsch, a marketing coach, author and creator of the Duct Tape Marketing system for small businesses.

Jantsch, who lives in Kansas City, Missouri, built his site, www.ducttapemarketing.com, in 2001 and says you can create a robust site for less than $150 per month, plus a few hundred dollars for software. Popular tools include Microsoft’s FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver.

After setting up your website, you’ll need a shopping-cart software program or service so you can take orders, calculate shipping and sales tax, and send order notifications. This costs about $29 to $79 per month. The most popular options include GoEcart.com, 1Shoppingcart.com and ShopSite Inc.

Your next step should be to obtain an internet merchant account from your bank, allowing you to accept credit card payments online. If your bank turns you down, try others and consider offering to move all your accounts to that bank to up your appeal. Or you can perform an online search for “credit card processing” to find a variety of companies offering accounts to budding online businesses.

You’ll also need a payment gateway account, which is an online processor that hooks into both your customer’s credit card account and your internet merchant account. The gateway verifies information, transfers requests and authorizes credit cards in real time. Leading providers to smaller merchants include Authorize.Net, CyberSource and VeriSign.

An even less expensive way to get started accepting online payments is to use PayPal, an account-based system that lets anyone with an e-mail address securely send and receive online payments using a credit card or bank account. PayPal is free, but the company charges 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for every transaction under $3,000. The company also has a product called PayPal Website Payments Pro, which offers basic shopping-cart functionality and costs $20 per month plus transaction fees.

Of course, you still have to actually host your site. You can do it yourself on a computer that can be dedicated as a web server and that has a broadband internet connection, but such systems are costly and have limited capacities. Your other option: Use a web-hosting company. Many entrepreneurs swear by some of the bigger names in web hosting, such as Affinity Internet, Go Daddy Software, Hostway, Interland, iPower, Network Solutions, 1&1 Internet, Verio and Yahoo!.

But some entrepreneurs prefer small, local hosting providers since they offer a direct contact–especially important if your site has an outage. Whether you use a large or small provider, basic hosting services–as well as domain-name registration and e-mail accounts–cost about $10 per month.

There’s also a free option: Microsoft plans to launch a beta version of Microsoft Office Live early this year, providing small businesses with their own domain name, a website with 30MB storage, and five e-mail accounts, each with 2GB storage. Visit www.microsoft.com/office/officeliveto check for availability.

If you’d rather not build your site yourself, there are many hosted web or e-commerce solutions that can help. Web-hosting companies generally offer a combination of site-building tools; product catalog tools; shopping-cart technology; payment, shipping and marketing strategies; tracking and reporting capabilities; domain registration; and hosting.

eBay offers a storefront solution called ProStores. ProStores–which is available to everyone, not just eBay sellers–offers a full-featured, customizable web store. Unlike eBay Stores, ProStores sites are accessed through a URL unique to the seller and have no eBay branding.

ProStores sellers are responsible for driving their own traffic, and items on ProStores sites sell only at fixed prices. The cost of a ProStore ranges from about $7 per month with a 1.5 percent transaction fee to about $250 per month with a 0.5 percent transaction fee.

Hosted solutions generally start at about $30 to $40 per month, plus setup fees of up to $50 per month. Some companies also charge transaction fees. Keep in mind, $40 will only get you basic functionality–bells and whistles cost a few hundred dollars per month.

Jacquelyn Tran, founder and president of Perfume Bay Inc., a Huntington Beach, California, company that sells cosmetics, skin-care products, perfume and home fragrances on its website, uses a full-featured e-commerce service from Yahoo!.

Tran started Perfume Bay in 1999 and now offers more than 30,000 types of products, with 2005 sales of $8 million. During startup, Tran hired a web designer to build her site. Her total startup cost was high, coming out to $50,000. “This included advertising, a custom-built shopping cart–everything,” she says.

A few years later, Tran decided to sign on with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (then called Yahoo! Stores). “The program was easy to use, fairly customizable with a lot of great features, and fully integrated,” says Tran, 28. “This was very important because we depend on having a really easy-to-navigate site.” She also found a web designer through Yahoo! to help set up the new site. Tran saw a difference almost immediately: “We got more orders,” she explains.

Tran chose Yahoo! Merchant Solutions’ most expensive offering: Yahoo! Merchant Professional, which costs $300 per month, plus a one-time setup fee of $50 and a fee of 75 cents per transaction. Hiring a web designer costs an additional $2,000 to $10,000. Still, that’s a lot less than it cost Tran to set up her customized site. “Looking back,” she says, “I wish I had gone to Yahoo! first.”

Sebastian Moser, U.S. director of technical development at Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania-based 1&1 Internet, says that before you sign on, make sure your hosted e-solution offers:

• A full wizard-driven setup: Most merchants need a proper wizard-driven system that takes you from start to a fully operational, production-ready e-commerce storefront.
• Many templates: An e-commerce solution provider should have many different templates to meet the needs of its varied customers and their products.
• SSL encryption: The system should include the option of SSL encryption-a protocol for transmitting private docu-ments via the internet. This means your customers’ credit card information and address is transmitted securely.
• A database-driven system: This allows a system to be inte-grated with your customer database, so you can send out promotional e-mails.
• Payment beyond paypal: PayPal serves the needs of a lot of e-tailers, but not all of them. The best hosted e-commerce vendors offer several payment gateways.

Before starting an e-commerce site, many companies test the waters by selling on eBay. They have good reason: Today, the eBay community includes 168 million registered users worldwide. “The most obvious reason a new business chooses eBay is the access to our enormous customer base,” says Jim “Griff” Griffith, dean of eBay Education.

To sell on eBay, you need to register and create a seller’s account. Listing an item is an easy five-step process, but Griff suggests you do your homework first: Research eBay to learn what the market value is for your items and what eBay sellers of similar items are doing on the site.

When you list an item on eBay, you’re charged an Insertion Fee ranging from 25 cents to $4.80, depending on the item’s selling price. You’re also charged a Final Value Fee if your item is sold. Final Value Fees start at 5.25 percent of the item’s closing value.

You may also consider opening an eBay Store, which costs from $15.95 per month to $500 per month. eBay Stores let you sell your fixed-price and auction items from a unique destination on eBay. You can create customized categories, add your own logo or choose one of eBay’s on-line images, and list item descriptions and selling policies.

Your eBay Store is promoted in several ways: Your listings and user ID include a “red door” icon inviting buyers to visit your eBay Store. The eBay Store Directory can also guide buyers to your Store. And you receive your own personalized web address to distribute and promote.

One company that has made the most of its eBay Store is Jeff Atchison Enterprises Inc., dba Dad’s Toys. The Dardenne Prairie, Missouri-based company, which started in 1999, sells high-end gadgets such as flat-screen TVs–many of them on eBay.

Founder and president Jeff Atchison set up a basic eBay Store in 2002. Why? “To add credibility to my listings,” says Atchison, 41. “It shows people you are more of a permanent presence on eBay.” It also allows Atchison to keep all his listings organized on one website that can easily be viewed by customers. Tactics like this have helped Atchison grow his company to an estimated revenue of $2.1 million last year.

Ready, Set, Sell!

Once you’ve got your website up and running, you, an in-house IT staffer or an IT consultant should optimize it for best results. Lisa Schneegans, executive vice president of Praxis Software Solutions, a Minneapolis provider of internet solutions for small and midsize companies, suggests 10 ways to optimize your website:

1. Test your site early and often. Plan ahead to ensure your site can handle heavy shopping traffic.
2. Test your content for misspelled words, broken links, busted pictures, etc.
3. Make sure images load quickly. A slow-loading page may drive customers away.
4. Install, verify and test all patches and upgrades.
5. “Load test” your site to see how much traffic it can support. A web maintenance service can tell you how you do.
6. Create sample transactions. These can simulate expected customer traffic and web transactions. By running “synthetic” transactions periodically–say, every five to 15 minutes–you’ll know if there is a problem before your customers do.
7. Check the performance of your network provider. You can do this by looking at a site that is simi-lar to yours in your area but connected to another network.
8. Add cross-sell and upsell opportunities throughout your site. This means, for example, suggesting table linens on the dinnerware, silverware and glassware pages. Offer “Top Gift Suggestions” or “Bestsellers” to improve sales and drive impulse purchase opportunities.
9. Make it easy to find and contact live customer service. Providing an easy-to-find phone number on the site helps online shoppers feel more secure. Clearly state your company’s return policy.
10. Make your search function more effective. Your search function should accommodate common misspellings by returning similarly spelled items or your site’s most popular search terms.

Taking Shortcuts

If you don’t want or need a full-blown e-commerce site, check out the following quick, low-maintenance ways to sell merchandise and services.

• Craigslist.org: Craigslist.org allows you to post items for sale for free. More than 10 million people use Craigslist each month, and there are more than 6 million classified ads and 1 million forum postings each month.
• Gorage.com: Want to avoid paying auction commissions? Then try Gorage.com, an online garage sale, classified ads section and storefront shopping alternative that offers flat-rate pricing for listing items online, allowing sellers to avoid paying auction commissions. The pricing structure is based on the number of “selling spaces” a user chooses, which together make up the seller’s “gorage.” Gorage.com pricing plans start at $5.
• SwapThing.com: Have a limited amount of cash? Tired of being outbid in auctions? Then try SwapThing.com, a site that lets you swap or sell everything from music, art, trading cards, old schoolbooks–even personal services. You can list items for free; the site charges each party $1 for every item swapped or sold.

Getting the media to notice can be tough. Reporters are inundated by the minute with breaking news from different sources, all clamoring for attention. One way to cut through the noise is to offer a different type of article–one that speaks to a topic that’s of interest to a target audience but isn’t dependent on being newsworthy right at the moment it’s sent. That type of article is called a feature.

A feature is an in-depth look at a topic, product or industry–it’s a complex story designed to be read at a leisurely pace. And a feature can benefit your company by linking your brand or product to a larger trend or industry focus while also showcasing you, the entrepreneur, as a thought-leader in your field.

While a news release is designed to entice the reporter into finding out more information themselves, a feature is designed to be used as is, or merely edited to fit the space available.

Topics such as health, home improvement, travel and technology all lend themselves well to features since they can be used in special sections of newspapers–such as lifestyle, home, arts or technology–or in the weekend magazines. Trade publications also publish feature articles, usually in the form of special supplements.

Because a feature should be written from a journalistic perspective, you should emphasize information over outright promotion. Ideally, a feature editor won,t change the story at all and will use it when it,s needed as part of a theme or to fill space.

Papers like to have quality articles on hand, so come up with your feature-worthy concept, then use the following guidelines to help you write a great article.

Headlines

The headline is the most vital part of your feature. Treat the headline as if it were a summary of the article. Ask yourself, Why is this story important? What about it will it grab readers’ interest? A good headline answers those questions by telling the reader something new, different or useful–in 20 words or less. A few examples I’ve seen recently include:

• Plug-In Devices Help Save Money on Your Utility Bill
• Reinventing the “Mommy Tack”: More Women Choose Business Ownership to Gain Control, Flexibility and Family Time
• The Sleep Expert’s Advice on Creating the Right Sleep Environment for Students

To come up with a good headline, pretend you’re telling a friend what the article’s about, explaining the most interesting aspects of your story. Keep the wording simple, and avoid superlatives and emotive language. Also, avoid using a brand or client name in the headline unless it’s very well known. Instead, focus on what’s most interesting about your topic.

Leads

A strong lead paragraph offers intrigue from the start. Editors don’t have time to read through the entire article to reach your key point, and neither do your readers. Think of the lead as an extended version of the headline, even using some of the same words.

When writing a lead, try to keep the paragraph short–two to three short sentences at the most. In total, your feature should be close to 400 words. Don’t worry about your brand at this point–just introduce the interesting aspects of the story. If your lead reads like an ad, it’ll be discarded immediately.

The Second Paragraph

The second paragraph serves to support and expand on the ideas set out in the lead. It’s also a good place to let people know who’s behind the feature so there’s no confusion about who provided the copy. Also, if the article has to be shortened due to space limitations, having the name of the company or spokesperson and your web address near the beginning will be vitally important.

If written well, the first two paragraphs can serve as a brief column item or filler if a newspaper or magazine has only limited space.

Using Quotes

A quote can lend authority to an article, introduce an expert and further advance the story. Most important, quotes can introduce personal feelings, comments and opinion, so this is where you want to use superlatives and emotive language (without sounding false!).

Be sure quotes are in a conversational style, and don’t merely cite facts or figures–no real person speaks only in data. Also avoid repeating information or using jargon; speak as if you were explaining your product or service to your grandmother.

Ideally, the person you quote should be someone who’d be available for interviews should a journalist want to ask additional questions. So he or she should be knowledgeable on the topic and open to working with the media. Use your strongest quote first, and be sure to provide information on the speaker and his or her relation to the company in a contact section at the end of your article.

Getting Into Detail

After the third paragraph, any information you add should develop the story further and hold the interest of the reader. Now’s the time to go into detail about the benefits of a product, or the mechanisms of how it works. However, for ease of reading, use bullet points or top tips if you’re listing information.

Another thing to remember–and one way a feature differs from a news release–is that a feature story will almost never include corporate identity or forward-looking statements.

When to Send a Feature

Generally, newspaper feature sections are planned at least three weeks in advance, so you’ll need to plan ahead. E-mail the features editor to determine their interest before you start writing–just a simple outline will do. If you’re trying to get into a trade publication, do your research and check the deadlines–they could be working as much as three months in advance.

Most news wires offer feature services and media databases, and they’ll often offer a feature calendar that corresponds with publications’ due dates. Consider distributing your feature via news wire and, if possible, choose one that has a list of when and where your feature could be placed and advises on crafting your feature for the different audiences.

Also, don’t forget your web audience. Search engines are used millions of times each day by people looking for how-to, where-to and when-to articles. Your news wire can help you reach these audiences by providing search engine optimization to help get your story placed highly in searches.

Images and Multimedia

A photo can often mean difference between your feature being chosen for publication vs. them choosing your competitor’s. A photo helps explain the story and can draw the eye of those scanning the page. It also gives editors more options when filling space.

Make sure your photos are high-quality: Always provide digital photos in high resolution (300 dpi) and, if possible, have them shot by a professional. A bad photo will reflect on the quality of your feature.

Other multimedia options include a video or audio version of your story, or additional expert quotes and interviews. A feature podcast or multimedia news release can include all these assets to transform your story into an online experience for your audience, complete with links and reference materials to let them experience more for themselves.

Finally

When sending your feature to reporters for editorial consideration, don’t be afraid to call them to offer more information; however, don’t call to check that the article has arrived. Reporters are busy and don’t like being called without good reason. And be patient–since your feature isn’t breaking news, the reporter may file it for use next week, next month or during the next holiday season.

Once your feature’s been accepted, look out for follow-up opportunities: Keep tabs on industry trends, or consider doing a “What happened a year later” story or a biography of someone quoted in the article. With luck, your feature could be the next topic of discussion around the water cooler.

A business card is a very important part of your marketing plan. In fact, it’s the most powerful part. Don’t expect your business card to tell the whole story about your company. Expect it to present a professional image people will remember. A business card will make or break your potential client’s first impression of you. In fact, this little card makes as much of an impression as your personal appearance.

Choose a card that’s appropriate for your business, industry and personal style. If you’re a funeral director, for example, you don’t want to be caught handing out day-glow cards with cartoon figures on them. If you’re a mechanic whose specialty is converting old Beetles into dune buggies, a formal, black-on-white engraved card will probably be dropped into the nearest circular file. When crafting a design, start with the style that best supports the business image you wish to project. To help you get started, here are five different card styles for you to consider:

• Basic cards. A basic card is usually printed in black ink on plain white or cream stock. This is a good style to choose when utility is all you need. It’s a no-nonsense approach that can appeal to clients and prospects who would not be impressed by fancy design features-the people who want “just the facts, ma’am.” The design is simple, and the information is clear and concise.
• Picture cards. Having your face on your card-whether it’s a photograph, a drawing or a caricature-helps a contact remember you the next time he or she sees you. Images representing a product or service, or a benefit your business provides, can help you communicate your business better than dozens of words. A splash of color (rather than just black and white) is often helpful on a picture card, too.
• Tactile cards. Some cards are distinguished not so much by how they look as by how they feel. They may use nonstandard materials, such as metal or wood, or have unusual shapes, edges, folds or embossing. Tactile cards tend to be considerably more expensive than regular cards because they use nonstandard production processes such as die cuts. But for some businesses, this more unusual card may be worth the price.
• Multipurpose cards. A card can do more than promote your name and business-it can also serve as a discount coupon, an appointment reminder or some other function. It may also provide valuable information that the average person may need. For example, a hotel may include a map on the back of its card for any guests who are walking around the local area. A card of any type can be made multipurpose by adding any of these types of features.
• Outside-the-box cards. A wildly original, fanciful or extravagant presentation can draw extra attention. Creativity knows no bounds-except the amount of money you wish to spend. Some examples are cards made of chocolate or that folded out into a miniature box to keep small items in.

Now It’s Time to Order

Once you’ve settled on a basic idea for your business card, it’s time to head to the printer. There are four primary considerations when ordering business cards:

• Weight. Most business cards are printed on 80-pound cover stock.
• Finish. Of the three available-smooth, linen and laid-the smooth finish is the most popular.
• Color. Right now, two-color cards predominate. If you’re selecting from a catalog, there are between five and 15 standard colors to choose from. If you have another ink color in mind, your printer can show you a Pantone Matching System book, which includes every shade under the sun.
• Quantity. It generally pays to print more cards rather than fewer, because the printer’s cost is primarily in the setup.

Design Resource

For more detailed descriptions of the different types of business cards, take a look at It’s in the Cards. In it, Ivan Misner, Candace Bailly and Dan Georgevich review more than 2,000 business cards from 10 countries and select more than 200 examples of some of the best, which are shown throughout the book in full-color.

Though this may sound like obvious advice, it might cost you another trip to the printer if you don’t heed it: Include the essentials. This means your name, title, company name, address, phone number (or numbers, if you want to include your cell), e-mail and Web site. If someone wants to contact you after receiving your card, you sure as heck want them to be able to.

Your website isn’t getting any traffic. What’s worse is you’re not generating any sales. Plus, without traffic, you can’t test the key components of your sales process. In other words, you’re in a pickle.

And if you roll out a large traffic campaign before you’ve tested your site to make sure it converts maximum visitors into buyers, you risk losing sales and looking unprofessional to potential business partners and affiliates.

So you’re caught in a vicious cycle: Before ramping up a big traffic campaign, you need to test your sales process, but without any traffic, testing is difficult–if not impossible!

Here’s an eight-step action plan that will show you:

• How to get cheap, instant traffic to your website so you can test key components of your sales process–your sales copy, order form, navigation and opt-in offer–before rolling out a large-scale traffic campaign.
• How to ensure that every element of your sales process is optimized to convert maximum traffic into maximum sales.
• The most effective strategies for attracting thousands of highly qualified potential buyers to your site right away.
• The secret to putting your entire traffic campaign on autopilot.

So even if your site is getting no traffic right now, you can be testing the key elements of your sales process tomorrow–and as soon as two weeks from now, you can be rolling out your traffic campaign in full.

1. Get the traffic you need to test your website fast! But, you may be asking yourself:
   • How do I test my site?
   • What do I test on my site?

   As you may already know, there are an infinite number of things you can test on your site to help you increase sales. From layout to copy to design, there are limitless combinations of changes that may improve your visitor-to-sale conversion rate. But what’s “enough” when you’re just starting out? What elements should you focus on testing before rolling out your traffic campaign?

   Stick to the basics. Focus on testing your:

   • Salescopy: especially your headline, benefits, guarantee and call to action
   • Order process: which needs to be simple enough for a novice web user to place an order
   • Opt-in offer: so you can determine if you’re successfully capturing your visitors’ contact information
   • Site navigation: so you can figure out how many clicks it takes to buy. Ideally it should take less than three.

   These are the four critical aspects of your sales process that need to be tested before you start driving traffic. Later on, once you’ve generated sales and have some steady traffic, you can move on to testing other parts of your site.

   Of course, all this talk of testing your new site raises one big question: How can you test without traffic? Because if you’re just getting started, chances are good that your website doesn’t get much traffic yet.

   The solution is simple: Buy traffic through PPC search engines. Pay-per-click search engines are a lot like auctions–they allow you to bid for top-ranking positions under keywords of your choice. For each visitor who searches the keyword(s) you bid on and then clicks through to your site, you pay whatever you bid. Prices typically range from five cents to a few dollars per click-through for popular keywords. There are a ton of PPC search engines out there.

   With PPC search engines, you get cheap, instant, qualified traffic–provided you bid on targeted keywords. Not only that, but bidding on traffic in the PPC search engines can help your site get ranked in the free search engines, too!

   Here are a few tips to help you start bidding for traffic without breaking the bank:

   • In Yahoo Search Marketing, bid to appear in the top three listings whenever possible, since these results are also “pushed” to appear in many other search results–reaching a large percentage of all internet users.
   • Bid on targeted, descriptive keywords. So don’t just bid on “sock;” bid on “red wool sock.” Not only are targeted keywords and phrases usually cheaper to bid on–they’ll also attract more qualified potential buyers. Use a keyword selection tool like Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool to research targeted keywords that attract maximum traffic for minimal cost-per-click.
   • After you’ve tested and tweaked your site with a limited amount of purchased traffic, it’s time to start generating qualified traffic for your site on a larger scale. But how do you go from some traffic to a ton of traffic?
2. Get cheap traffic quickly with PPC advertising. Once you’ve tested your site with limited PPC traffic, the fastest way to ramp up traffic to your site is to roll out a PPC campaign on a larger scale.

   This is also a great time to get started with Google AdWords –Google’s own PPC contender. With Google AdWords, you get instant traffic with no waiting. Because as soon as you put the money down on your keywords, your ad goes up and starts working for you.

3. Get free traffic from search engines like Google. Now that you’ve bid on keywords for a strong showing in the PPC search engines, it’s time to tackle the organic search engines and directories. Search engines like Google and directories like Yahoo! can still be a great source of free traffic for your website. The trick is getting a competitive ranking for your best keywords.
4. Give away irresistible free content for priceless publicity. Believe it or not, a really easy, frequently undervalued strategy for getting traffic is giving away free content to other websites. Even just two or three well-written articles can generate truckloads of traffic, as long as they don’t contain a sales pitch.

   You want to include rare, hard-to-get information that’ll lend your articles automatic value–the kind of information that establishes you as an expert in your field.

   Once you’ve finished an article, write a short bio paragraph about you and your business and place it at the end of your article along with–and this is the most important part–a link to your site.

   To locate sites that might be interested in your content, e-mail other website owners in your industry–be sure to choose sites that receive attention and visits from your target market–and invite them to use your article on their site or in their newsletter at absolutely no cost.

   Many site owners need fresh content, so they’ll be more than happy to post your articles–and it won’t be long before those articles start driving traffic back to your site.

   Another option is to give away your articles through free content websites like these:

   • www.ezinearticles.com
   • www.freesticky.com

   Your articles will automatically be made available to thousands of websites seeking free, quality content–and all you have to do is submit your articles once.

   Don’t underestimate the power of giving away free content. And as your articles gain more exposure, don’t be surprised if you’re contacted by high-profile magazine and portal sites related to your industry looking for free articles to include on their sites, too.

5. Get free word of mouth publicity using viral marketing. Simply defined, viral marketing is a way for you to spread your marketing message like a virus. You encourage people to pass on information about your site to others, and you use that word-of-mouth publicity to advertise your business. Once you start the “virus,” it spreads without you lifting a finger.

   Need an example? Try Hotmail.com, the free web-based e-mail service provider. At the bottom of every single Hotmail e-mail sent by Hotmail members, there’s a simple one-line message:

   “Get your free, private email from MSN at http://www.hotmail.com”

   How much time do you think it took Hotmail to include that signature line as part of their e-mail service? Not much at all–but look at the impact this simple strategy had on the growth of their business. In my personal experience, more than 35 percent of all e-mail users have Hotmail accounts!

   You can easily duplicate this strategy by doing something as simple as including a “pass it on link” at the end of a free newsletter, something as simple as:

   “If you’ve enjoyed this article, please be sure to forward it to a friend!”

   By simply asking readers to take action and forward your newsletter, you’ll prompt free word of mouth exposure for your business without any extra cost or hassle.

   How else can you put viral marketing to work for you? Here are a few simple ideas:

   1. Give away free articles (like the ones I describe in Step 4) that include a “pass it on” link.
   2. Give away free demos of your product.
   3. Offer a free trial of your service with a “share this great resource” button on the page.
   4. Hold a contest on your site, and give participants an extra entry for every friend they refer.
   5. Start an affiliate program (see Step 7 below).

   As you can see, you don’t need to be the next Hotmail to get started with viral marketing. By simply encouraging people to “share this resource with friends,” you can attract some great word-of-mouth traffic.

6. Get free links on other high-traffic websites. Link requests require minimal effort from you, but they can absolutely explode your traffic numbers overnight. How? If your site is a featured link on a major site in your industry–one that receives a ton of attention–your site immediately benefits from all the exposure their site receives.

   Getting started with this strategy is simple, but you should follow a standard process every time you request a link. Let’s break it down into a few easy steps:

   1. Do a Google search for your standard keywords–the ones that people generally use to find your site.
   2. Make detailed notes about the sites that appear regularly in the top ten listings for your major keywords.
   3. Use the Alexa Toolbar, LinkPopularity or Technorati to find out what other sites these sites are linking to, whose linking to them and how much traffic they’re receiving, then look up their contact information.
   4. Before making contact, make sure you know the correct URL for the site, the URL of the sub-page on which you want your link to appear, the name of the site owner or webmaster, the date you last visited their site, and a brief description of the contents of the site.

   When you’re ready to contact the owners of these website and request a link, write a personal e-mail–don’t use form letters. Be sure to include some positive comments about their site, information about you and your site (along with your URL), an explanation of why a link to you would benefit them, and instructions for contacting you to get started.

   You want your request to be thorough and professional. If you can present a persuasive argument for why the link request benefits both of you, you stand a better chance of forging a connection. And if you’re really eager to get your link on their site, be prepared to up the ante by offering them a commission or a link on your site in return. The investment could be well worth the extra exposure your marketing message receives.

   When other businesses request links on your site, my advice is, be stingy. Just as links on others’ sites serve as a personal recommendation of your site, links on your site are recommendations for their businesses. Only recommend the best!

7. Get thousands of websites to promote your business for free. Imagine hundreds, even thousands, of websites promoting your product or service without spending a dime until someone refers a paying customer. You can do this with what’s called an affiliate program.

   Affiliate programs–also referred to as “reseller” or “associate” programs–are a great way to get other people (called “affiliates”) to promote your product or service for you. For every paying customer your affiliates refer to your site, you pay them a commission. And since you only pay when you make money, it’s an extremely low-risk option.

   Here’s how it works: Your affiliates send visitors to your site using banner ads, text links, letters of referral and so on, while you track these referrals using special software. It’s an extremely powerful way to grow your business because it automates your traffic generation. To get started with your own affiliate program, you need to:

   1. Establish your commissions. To keep your affiliates motivated, you should pay them 40 to 50 percent of your profits per sale.
   2. Get software to track the traffic and sales of your affiliates so you know what to pay them.
   3. Provide your affiliates with tools they can use to promote your products, such as e-mails, banners and so on.
   4. Recruit more affiliates. Look for sites that target your market, and invite them to become affiliates.

   Affiliate programs are an ideal way to automate your traffic generation because other people are marketing your site for you. Your sales increase on a daily basis–but your affiliates do all the selling for you, and it doesn’t cost you a dime until they send you paying customers.

8. Use e-mail marketing to attract repeat visitors. Getting lots of traffic to your site is great, but if you aren’t collecting the contact information–the names and e-mail addresses–of visitors, you’re wasting every single click. If visitors leave your site without buying your product, there’s a good chance they won’t ever be back–and you’ll have absolutely no way of following up with them. It can take up to seven points of contact to make a single sale.

   You’ll want to begin collecting visitors’ contact information from day one using an opt-in form on your home page. Then send them e-mail messages to follow up and keep them thinking about your site. Need some ideas for e-mails you could send to follow up with your opt-in subscribers? Try these ideas:

   1. Monthly or bi-weekly newsletters that include tons of tips and information
   2. Free reports on topics your market would appreciate
   3. Answers to common questions people ask about your product
   4. Offers for products similar or complementary to ones you may have already offered them
   5. Free product trials that give potential customers a taste of what you have to offer
   6. A “downgrade” offer for a product that’s less expensive or robust than your featured offer

   Following up with the addresses you gather is quick, easy and simple with e-mail management and automation software. You can create e-mail messages called “autoresponders” that potential customers receive automatically as soon as they opt-in on your site–within seconds–no matter what time of day it is or whether you’re even at your desk!

   That’s right: As soon as your visitors opt in, they’ll start hearing from you on a regular basis without you having to deal with the stress of writing a ton of e-mails to individual addresses. This is a process you can put on autopilot from the very beginning.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this article, before you dive into any of these strategies, you’ll need to do a bit more reading and research on each of these topics in order to understand these tactics in depth.

This article was meant to be a clear road map of exactly what you need to do first, second and third to test your website to maximize conversion rates and then roll out an effective traffic campaign that attracts swarms of potential buyers–automatically–for years to come. But reading more on each topic will help figure out exactly what you need to do for your site to make it a success.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a common thread that links all our most successful clients who have internet businesses: They have all focused on implementing one or two marketing strategies really well.

Don’t feel like you need to become an expert in all the strategies covered here. Focus on becoming really proficient at one or two–because this may be all you need to dramatically increase your traffic–and sales.