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The realities are that the online community is more affluent and better educated than the population as a whole and they are willing to spend money online. The question is how do you attract them to your product or service?

As the economy struggles advertising dollars are being reduced. This opens up some opportunities for the small business and its ability to use online advertising. With some research you can locate the high traffic sites that will deliver your ad to your target market, selling ad space at fairly discounted rates. The key is to find sites that offer a service or product that compliments yours and then investigate their advertising opportunities.

One of the benefits of advertising on the internet is it allows you to track how many people responded, unlike television, radio or print advertising. Typically the response is similar to direct mail ranging from less than one to three percent.

Specifically I am referring to banner ads. I know all the hype is banner ads don’t work. But they will work, be cost effective and targeted if you follow some simple guidelines.

1. Who is your customer? Don’t just place banner ads anywhere, select those sites that cater to your target customer. Studies show that Internet users have short attention spans. You want to put your banner in a place where someone is already looking for information related to your product or service. For instance, if you sell flea collars, don’t blow your budget on a general rotation on Yahoo! It may get you exposure, but it won’t get you sales. Instead, find a site devoted to pets that has more targeted audience for you product.

2. Remember those short attention spans? Make your banner attractive, enticing so that the surfer will want to see more. If you are going to invest money in your advertising this is where you should invest. Hire a graphics designer to design your ad copy. Remember you only have seconds to pique their interest.

3. Never do any advertising that can’t be measured. Make sure you can measure the number of click-throughs generated by your ads. Most online advertising companies have software that allows you to track your results. Don’t continue to do the same thing if it is not working. Try and figure out why certain ads perform better than others. Use this information to improve your campaign, and generate more sales.

4. Finally, when the potential new sale does click-through to your web site make sure the information they are looking for is easy to find. If they have to search too hard they will hit that back button. What I mean by that is create specific landing pages for each product that you advertising online.

What could be more powerful, the interested customers can click, learn more and actually buy on the spot.