Tim Bossie.com

Effective website advertising, when done correctly, is a thing of beauty. In fact, it is almost like watching a perfectly choreographed play in sports that is run to perfection and wins the game. Flawless. Perfect. Without any glitches or mistakes.

In online advertising there are several factors that you must keep in mind and focus on to ensure the perfect advertising campaign.

And before you begin asking if you can possibly have the perfect advertising campaign , let me tell you upfront; It can happen. It has several times for people who have launched a brand new product and have seen hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of dollars in profits in one day.

Effective advertising is a culmination of several factors all working together. Some at precise times and others on a continuing basis. Now, to make this process a little bit "user friendly" and not to overwhelming here are ten of my best tips for an effective advertising campaign for your website.

1. Have a concrete, but flexible advertising plan. Effective advertising is not a mistake. It is something that is cultivated, thought about, planned for, and even foreseen. You should be able to see where you are going (what you want from your efforts) before you even get there. So many people throw up random ads here and there, buy ad space in various newsletters, do some link exchanges, write a few hap-hazard articles, and even do a hit or miss PPC campaign.

Failure to create a concrete plan will result in spotty, if any, results. However, you must also keep in mind that the plan should also be flexible enough to make slight changes here and there when you see something is, or isn’t, working.

The best way to create a plan for your online advertising is to just do it. You could follow a certain advertising how-to in creating your plan , but it isn’t going to do you any good unless you sit down and do it.

I always begin creating plans with a blank piece of paper . The power of a blank piece of paper is unlimited. In that piece of paper there are no restrictions, no boundaries, no preconceived misconceptions. Your opportunities are limitless.

Want to begin your effective advertising plan off on the right foot? Sit down and create a plan.

2. Have a multi-pronged advertising attack. A lot of times when people begin to think about advertising they do one of two things. First, they get so overwhelmed by the many ways of advertising that they freeze and don’t do anything at all. Or, two, they close their eyes, pick one of the methods, and throw something at it. As you can probably guess, neither one of these approaches does much to the overall effectiveness of your ad campaign.

An effective ad campaign incorporates several different advertising methods, and materials, so that a maximum number of people will have contact with your link. Fortunately, that is so much easier now with social media marketing. An ad campaign that uses email ads, articles, blog posts, blog comments, forum postings, twitter tweets, facebook notes, and several profiles on other social networking sites is like having a huge bat signal flashing everyone to your website.

3. Create conversational style advertising materials vs. hard sell. One of the things I’ve been telling my clients for years to do is to write conversational style ad materials. For example, let’s say you want to send an email notice to your list or a list you bought ad space in. Instead of writing this over the top, super-hyped hard sales letter your marketing materials should engage the reader in a conversation.

Response rates increase sharply when your advertising is conversational. The reason that social networking is so powerful is because of the conversation. How do you engage in a conversation in a one dimensional ad?

Simple. Create it like you’re sitting across the table from the person reading it. Write it like you would a letter. Leave room for the person to answer questions in their mind, respond to statements out loud, and be led to click on your link.

4. Always keep a main point in focus. A focus is the end result you want to happen because of the advertising. Throughout your advertising campaign there should be one central theme or focus. Keep in mind your focus must be consistent through the entire campaign. Your emails, newsletter issues, landing pages, ppc ads, ads on blogs, comments, social networking should have the same focus. The end result you want to come through should be the same. New RSS subscriber, new email subscriber, buy a low priced report, join free membership portal… whatever your focus is, keep it consistent.

5. Have at least three different sets of advertising materials with different goals. As an athletic coach I always go into a game with a few different game plans just in case our original plan doesn’t really work for our team. In basketball, for example, I usually have the team drill hard on four to five plays we can use during the game. To me, advertising is much like playing sports. And having several different “plays” that you can run is key to an effective ad campaign.

With several concise, and focused, advertising “sets” (this is just a way to say that each on is distinct and should be regarded as separate) you are able to do a few things.

Have three different goals each corresponding to a completely different landing area on your website.

Create new opportunities to connect with people depending on your focus.

Test to see which “set” is more effective and put more energy there.

Find out why some “sets” aren’t working and make changes.

6. Become friends with others in your niche. Effective advertising has always been through word of mouth and alliances with other people doing the same thing. For instance, a hunting guide I know that shows his clients where the best hunting grounds are so they can go home with their trophy buck told me a few years ago that at least half of his new clients come from referrals by other guides.

Internet marketers often feel that everyone else is their competition and should stay away from them all, or in extreme cases, talk bad about them. When just the opposite is true. You should create friendships, alliances, joint ventures, mutual advertising, or anything else you can think of with others within your own niche.

Selling ebooks? Great! Create a friendship with someone else who sells ebooks much like yours (Facebook and Twitter are great for this) and refer traffic to them. In turn, they do the same for you. This will, and can, work for anything you’re selling online.

7. Concentrate on social media marketing. Advertising on the internet is constantly changing and social media wouldn’t have been on the radar of advertisers five years ago. Or even two for that matter. But, today’s age of relationship building and emphasis on transparency and authenticity, social media marketing has become one of the most effective traffic sources.

Starting out slowly with the most popular, and easiest, social websites like Facebook, Twitter, and StumbleUpon can get you started with networking, relationship building, and a great source of traffic.

8. Learn the fine points of blogging and article marketing. Effective marketing on the internet means information. The easiest form of information is the written form. No specialized software needed. I do realize that to say that writing is easy would not be accepted by those who find it a struggle. But, if you take time to learn about blogging and article marketing, then it does become easier.

Writing for the web is the way that you become known. It is the way that people get to know you, see what you are about, find out what you know, and then be drawn into your website. Articles are a very powerful way to do that. If you did nothing else, but write articles and blog a few times a week, you would begin seeing large amounts of traffic and long term, repeat customers.

9. Add new advertising “avenues” each week. This is where a lot of people begin to lose steam a little in their advertising. It is easy to see how this can happen, but you must keep moving ahead rather than staying static. Here’s what I’m talking about.

A lot of times people will just pick a few different ways to advertise and stay with them forever. They don’t venture out and try anything new. More than that, sometimes people will find a forum, some blogs, a social network and do the same thing… stay there instead of actively looking for new places. Effective advertising means that you never stop looking for new places to be active in. New forums to participate in, blogs to comment on, social networks to socialize on should always be found.

I try to find new places on a weekly basis and begin working with them. This helps me not only be a part of different conversations, but also spread out who I am and what I do.

10. Get away from it. Effective advertising means a fresh outlook. This fresh outlook energizes you to continue advertising and not get burned out or turn it into a despised activity. Getting away from the computer, your business, any type of marketing at all will only give you a greater desire to accomplish more when you return. One day away is not going to kill you. Some might disagree and think you need to be advertising 24 hours a day. While that might be productive it is counterproductive to your effectiveness.

Just get away from it every once in awhile. Take a day off. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. Enjoy your family. When you get back to work the next day you’ll accomplish more and enjoy it more.