If You're Serious About Your Online Business Stop Chasing The Latest Marketing Fads

If you're like 90% of Internet marketer's you're constantly bombarded with emails about the "latest, greatest" product available and will feel obliged to fork out yet more of your hard-earned cash so that you don't get "left behind".

Blog and ping, tag and ping, the latest Adsense page generator, a new ebook, some "whizz-bang" software, meeting a guru at a seminar. The list goes on. And on.

However here's some important news I need to break to you.

Much of it is "here today, gone tomorrow" advice that means if you miss the boat, if too many people use the techniques, if the search engines change their algorithms, if you're just plain unlucky - you lose.

What's the point in that?

What the point in constantly changing your business model to fit with the latest fad? You'll constantly be falling behind and will drive yourself mad (or burn out) with the goalposts moving every week or two.

Enough already!

When the dust settles after a major new product launch, the sad fact is there's really very little new information out there.

You often end up paying $97 or more for a rewritten version of something you already knew.

Or that stopped working last week.

Several times in the past I've essentially bought the same product 4 or 5 times in the past just in different forms. What a waste of time and money.

What's even worse is that you can spend so much money on ebooks, software, seminars, video courses and more that you don't have any cash left over the actually market your website effectively.

And of course the major aim is to market your site effectively, thus drawing plenty of highly-targetted visitors and making numerous sales.

So I strongly suggest you put yourself on an "information diet" - only buying ocassional products (and when you *do*, making sure you *implement* their suggestions rather than letting the information sit there unused) and instead investing your capital into implementing the same old, almost "boring" techniques that have been around for years, have been covered free of charge in numerous forums, articles, blogs and newsletters over the years and - shock horror - still work wonders for your results.

Want to know what they are?
OK, here are the secrets...

1) Gathering Links - Exchange links with other sites, write and distribute articles to create links, submit your site to directories and so on looking to generate a ton of high-quality links to your sites.

2) Basic SEO - Nothing fancy, no "latest fad" advice, just the old faithfuls such as putting your primary keywords in your title tag, using keyword-rich internal links and so on.

3) Pay Per Click Ads - Most usefully Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing can send you a ton of traffic by just intelligently picking your keywords and designing effective, attractive adverts.

4) Affiliate Programs - Set up your own using any of the multitude of specially-designed software out there and encourage people to sign up for your program by, for example, submitting it to the affiliate program directories, emailing existing customers and leads, adding a link to your signup page from your main navigation menu etc.

5) Press Releases - Both online *and* offline. Grab a book on how to write effective press releases (it takes a little practise) and fire out those press releases for instant (and almost free) exposure for your business. This technique alone can kick-start a linking campaign with plenty of sites linking to yours after you get seen in the media.

6) Community Marketing - I mean simply getting involved in whatever niche you're selling to. Write articles others can use. Start a blog. Write a newsletter. Help out in forums. Get known. And subtly mention your website at the same time. People will grow to like you, to know you, and to trust you. Then your business can take on a life of its own.

About the Author:

Richard Adams is the founder of Merchant Account Forum, the world's most-visited site on the topic of how to accept credit cards for your business. Visit him today at: www.merchantaccountforum.com/usmerchantaccount.html