Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is one of the fastest ways to drive a lot of traffic to a new website. You don’t need to take the time to build a reputation or establish back-links, but simply to have a profitable sales funnel and be able to fine-tune your PPC until you are spending money only on traffic that is profitable. Here are a few smart ways to do that.

Start with a Smaller Network

Try starting with a network such as Microsoft Bing. Though Bing has much less traffic than Google AdWords, the conversion rates tend to be a bit higher. You will have less competition and often lower bids.

In the beginning you won’t be using up all the traffic that AdWords can give you anyway. Instead of using a high-volume network, consider going with a high return-on-investment network instead. You don’t risk ruining your AdWords Quality Score with low click-through rate ads. Instead, use Bing or another smaller network to test out your keywords and ad copy before porting them over to AdWords.

Track Every Sale Back to the Keyword

Track every sale back to the keyword it came from. With proper tracking, you will be able to eliminate unprofitable keywords very quickly. Unless you are tracking your sales back to the keyword, you will probably spend a lot of money on campaigns that aren’t profitable. As a general rule, if you have spent more than double your profit on a keyword without making a sale, then cut the keyword. For example, if you are selling a product that earns you a $20 profit and you don’t make a sale by the time you have spent $40, then cut the keyword.

Start with Exact Match

Exact match keywords cost more than broad match keywords, but will usually have much higher conversion rates. The idea is to aim for people who are in the exact right mindset for what you are selling. Exact match allows you to filter out the browsers and instead get right to the buyers. Start with moderate volume keywords that your ideal buyers would enter. Bid exact match and get that to be profitable first. Then broaden your reach with phrase match. If you’re still profitable, then experiment with broad match as well.

Being Smart with PPC

Avoid volume until you have proven your campaigns to be profitable. Once you are profitable, scale up as quickly as you can while tracking diligently to make sure you are still profitable. As long as you are, then aim to get as much traffic as you can.

There is a lot of competition and many pitfalls in PPC. However, the rewards more than make up for the effort it will take to figure it out. Start small and start profitable, then make your way up from there.

How can you take your existing commission checks and increase them by twenty, fifty, one hundred percent, or even more? If you are already earning money as an affiliate, that means you are in the top percentile of affiliate marketers. Here are a few tips for increasing your commission checks without too much work to take it to the next level:

Ask for a Bump

If you want to earn more money, all you need to do is ask; ask your affiliate manager for a commission bump.

Let’s say you’re getting paid $4 a lead. The affiliate network gets paid $6.50 per lead by the advertiser. More often than not, they would rather give you $4.50 and keep your business than refuse your bump and risk losing your traffic. If you are delivering a fair amount of converting traffic, they will be happy to give you a commission increase.

This same principle also applies to information products, even on ClickBank. Many publishers are more than happy to give a little extra cut by PayPal if you are driving a lot of traffic.

Go Direct

If you are driving enough traffic ($5,000+ a month) then you should seriously consider going direct, which means you cut out the middleman and send the leads directly to the advertiser instead of through an affiliate network. This alone could boost your revenues by fifty percent. Use affiliate networks to help build up your traffic and test different offers. Once you find an offer from which you can consistently earn a lot of money, explore the possibility of going direct.

Test Different Offers across Different Networks

If you’re getting paid $4 a lead and another network is promoting the same offer for $4 a lead, it’s a very good idea to split test the two offers because the two networks might have different landing pages, different tracking and possibly different amounts of dropped sales. Even if nothing else is apparently different, you will often find differences in sales rates on two different affiliate networks. Testing different offers makes plain sense. Find the highest ROI for your traffic and advertising dollars.

Expand Traffic to All Similar Sources

If you are advertising on Google AdWords, then expand to MSN and Yahoo. If you are advertising on Trafficvance (PPV), then expand to Media Traffic and Zango. If you are advertising on Facebook, experiment with Myspace and PlentyofFish. Whatever traffic sources you are using, identify all the similar sources and see if you can duplicate your results. Although MSN and Yahoo combined might only be a third of your Google traffic, but you don’t need to go through all the trouble of finding a working campaign as you already know what works.

These are a few ways you can take your existing campaigns and techniques and expand them to earn twenty to one hundred percent more money every month.

Every day, entrepreneurs put videos on YouTube that are full of potentially costly mistakes. When used properly, YouTube can be a source of enormous traffic, yet when entrepreneurs make the mistakes described below, more often than not their video fails.

Looking at the Screen, Not the Camera

It is very tempting to look at your computer screen when you are recording a video, but it is important to keep in mind that for the viewer, when you are looking at your monitor it looks as though you are looking down or off to the side. The only time it looks as though you are making eye contact is when you look directly into the camera. Therefore, if you are using a camera to record yourself, always look directly into the camera.

Bad Sound

Having shoddy video quality is one thing, but having shoddy audio will ruin your chances of success. If viewers can’t hear what you’re saying, that is infinitely worse than having a fuzzy video. Make sure your audio is not too loud and not too soft. Above all, make sure the audio is not too fuzzy. Get a better microphone before you get a better camera. Also try sound editing software to remove any background noise.

Poor Keyword Choice

If you are using YouTube as a marketing tool, it is crucial that you select good keywords to put into your title. That way, when people search for something related to what you are targeting, your video will come up.

Of course, just having your keyword in your title doesn’t mean you will rank for the search. A number of factors, including views, comments and video responses, all go into determining where you rank. That said, if you don’t have your keyword in the title, you almost definitely will not rank.

No Contact Information or Call to Action

Now that you can put links in your video, there is absolutely no excuse to not have a solid call to action included in your video. Even if you are not using it as a primary marketing tool, you want to be linking to your website to build your brand and build your list, so you can send viewers more videos and more content in the future.

If you don’t get them to your website, you’re wasting a lot of the trust and positive emotional associations you have created by showing them a great video. Put either your contact information or your website in your video. Better yet, link directly to it from within your video and in your description.

These are some of the more common mistakes entrepreneurs make when putting videos on YouTube. Above all, make sure you avoid these mistakes.

One major challenge that online businesses face is getting enough exposure and brand awareness. With millions of people surfing the web every day, you want to make sure that you can optimize your brand and draw traffic to your website. After all, you cannot make money if there are no visitors coming to your website. You might have the best products and offers in the world, but it means nothing if no one ever sees them.

If you plan to establish an online presence, the first step is to design a website. Websites should be easy to navigate, as well as easy on the eyes. Avoid using too many add-ons such as Flash, which will only make downloading time longer and will drive customers from your site instead of to it. The main item for any site is content, not appearance. You need to have interesting content that is fully keyworded in order to help people find you through the search engines. This process, known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is a process in itself. You can check out the articles at this site on SEO through the navigation links on the right.

After you develop your website, you need to promote it and there are several ways to do that. Here are a few effective ones to help get you started.

Use social networking sites.
There is no better way to get your name out there and known than to interact with others in your industry and potential customers. You can do this by establishing a Facebook fan page where you showcase your photos and/or advice.

Invite your friends and family to become fans of your business page and, in turn, they will help spread the word to their friends and family. Make sure you post on a regular basis to keep your fans interested and your website at the forefront of their minds.

Other social networking sites available include Twitter and specialized forums. Make it a habit to interact with others as well, and not always focus on your business. You want users to know what is new with your business, but you also want them to get an insight into you as a person. If you become personal or at least friendly with others, you are more likely to be recommended if someone has a use for your services or products. People do business with people they like. Also remember that in social media, people are there to socialize, not necessarily to buy things, so do not act in a spamming manner.

Are you an online entrepreneur? That means you have a website set up. Every now and then, it is good to evaluate how your marketing efforts are working with your website. This is one way to boost your earnings.

Is your website doing all that it can do for you? If not, then you may want to re-evaluate your website structure.

Ask yourself one question: Is my website relevant? If you are using SEO to create page titles, tag lines and anchor text within content, then you are on the right track, but even an informational website can do more to pay for itself and create income for your business.

Here are some ways to boost the earnings:

* Affiliate programs – You can promote products that are complementary to yours on your website. Each time someone clicks on the links, they are directed to that website. You are credited based upon the way the program is set up. Choose an affiliate program with a full toolbox of aids to help with your promotion and also incentives for top sellers.

* Create a newsletter – This encourages others to read and share your website. It is also one way to build your list of potential customers. Create an opt-in page where they can enter their name and email address in exchange for a free monthly newsletter in their inbox.

* Use clear navigation – Include a website map so visitors can see at a glance what your website has to offer. Use buttons that clearly tell customers what action you want them to perform. This way there will be no doubts in their minds. Your buttons can be a “call to action” for affiliate programs and your own products.

* Showcase your products – Create an online store or catalog where visitors can see your products and read a description before they buy. Offer deals where they can get free items for buying certain products, or referral bonuses.

* FAQs page – This is where they can find out about you and your customer service. Use it to answer commonly asked questions so that you aren’t saddled with emails all containing inquiries that are obvious.

* Guest blogging – Agree to blog for others, in a complementary area of your niche, in exchange for links to your website. This way you can give their readers a taste of your style and what you have to offer. You can extend the same courtesy to the other blogger to create a mutually beneficial partnership.

* Look around – Find the websites that are the most popular in your niche and on the internet at large and see how they are using their website to maximize earnings. Try a few pages from their book and see how it works for you.

Looking to earn more from your website? Here are some suggestions to get you started.