It comes as no surprise to see advertisements all over the Internet. Advertising online is a booming industry where the top 5% controls 85% of the marketing space on the web. Big budgets reign supreme for the top 5% online advertiser, but where does the little guy fit in?

Welcome to the Poor Man’s Guide for Online Marketing. Within these contents you will find how you can make your site, product, or service visible to the masses while keeping your wallet in tact.

Let’s go over the forms of online advertising briefly so all avenues are explored.

• Banner Advertisements
• Text Link Ads
• Pay per Click (Search Engine Ads)
• Video Advertisements
• Local/Regional/Directory Ads
• Website Sponsorships

Advertising on a large scale on mass media or mass traffic sites is probably out. But would exposure on those sites help you reach your goal of success. Not necessarily.

The less money you have to spend per month means you will have to strategically spend your advertising dollars in a way that gets you a lot of quality exposure without breaking your wallet. The keyword is quality advertisements. Advertising on sites that have no relations of customers will waste your money and bring you zero return.

Pay per Click (Search Engine Marketing) 

The key to quality advertisements is displaying your presence in your industry. One of the easiest ways to do this is through Pay per Click (Search Engine Marketing) ads that will show up for the keywords you choose. Search engine marketing entails creating an ad with title, description, URL and a bid, all of which will determined which ad spot you will receive in the Search Engines Results Page. With proper research you can find keywords that are inexpensive and highly targeted to your customers. ROI can be very high when you optimize your ad and find the right combination of ad copy and landing page. It is cost effective, targeted and reaches a lot of people depending on the keywords targeted.

Banner Advertisements 

Many businesses/individuals decide they would like to pay for banner advertisements on a related website.  They are visible to the viewer and more often than not the most expensive form of advertising.  Results show that banner ads are the most ineffective form of advertising, yet on almost every website you visit you will see banner ads.  Banner ads can be bought cheap on related, individual owned niche-sites and blogs.  Many of these ads could see significant traffic, and if you advertise within your niche the traffic sent over will be highly targeted.

Text Link Ads 

Text Ads within body content are the highest converting form of advertising.  These advertising deals don’t generally have a rule on how much they will cost, but price is usually negotiated with the site owner depending on how many links you would like.  These links are generally cheap and high converting and are best used on a niche site or blog.

Video Advertisements 

If you are capable of producing video ads you could get yourself some great advertising space.  Many site owners are constantly on the lookout for video ads to put on their site.  More often than not they are priced on a pay per click basis.  This is currently one of the best ways to advertise online in my opinion.

Local/Regional Ads 

I am referring to pay per click or even sponsored ads in the yellow pages or other local directories.  For directories these ads will be pricier, but for pay per click you can usually find niches to advertise in dirt cheap.

Website Sponsorships

This could refer to any thing from contest sponsorships to general site sponsorships.  Getting your name out on a site anyway you can as a sponsor for a site may be slightly more expensive, but the recognition you will receive will be worth it.  Look to sponsor contests, time-sensitive offers or general websites with good traffic.

These are the best choices for online advertising.  They are inexpensive and will showcase your site, business or product/service.  As a general rule, look for middle tier sites and stay away from mainstream sites and you will be able to save money on your ads.  But still, my favorite form of advertising is through an affiliate program, because you get other people to spread the word for you.  If you don’t have an Affiliate program and you are a retailer or in the service industry, look into starting one.  There are a lot of companies out there that will make it easy to setup and they are sure to return well on your investment.