Cheap Internet Marketing Ideas

By Alastair Harris

The Internet is a wonderful place to market, sell and make money. But you can't achieve success unless you market. This is where most people come unstuck. They simply have limited start up income. Knowing this I thought I would share some cheap, if not free, internet marketing ideas.

1) Article Writing -

Apart from an investment of time and grey matter article writing is a free way to market online. Yes it does take time and the best performing articles have a bit of thought and skill put into their creation, but they are otherwise free and a great way to get traffic, links and build creditability on the internet. In other words - they are a way to market online, not only individual products or programs, but yourself as an author as well.

2) Safe Lists -

They are numerous free safe lists online, although I find the best performing ones are those you pay a one time fee for. A safe list is a list of email addresses that you may send an email advertisement to. Thanks to the can spam act - it is illegal to spam email addresses (although if my email box is anything to go on - enforcement on this law is still lagging somewhat). Still as most of us are good internet citizen's and follow the golden rule of doing undo others what you would have done to you, we only send emails to those who have already opted in to read an email or two.

3) AdWords -

AdWords is cheap in the sense that you can get started with a small budget - say $100 and advertise just about anything. You pay only for the clicks you receive. To make the most of your advertising campaign insure you are selective about your keywords, and clever in your individual ads. I recommend reading the rich jerk if you want to learn about an ad that sells online.

4) Signature Lines -

If you an online junkie then you likely to be making use of forums, social networks and more that the internet has to offer. If you do - DO NOT waste your signature lines. Nearly all forums will let you advertise sites or products in your signature lines - use it. Every time you post or reply to a threat, every time to comment on a blog, or every social network interaction should have a small plug (advertising chance). It can be a great way to generate traffic and if nothing else it buts your website/product name out there.

There four areas are cheap and time effective way to get the marketing ball rolling online. Once you start generating an income - do not forget to take a portion of the profits and RE-INVEST it in further advertising so you can expand your marketing and therefore increase your income over time.