I had to ask myself this question a few days ago. I'm always working on a project or two, sometimes ten. One thing that concerns me is not how much money is being made on the Internet, but even more importantly, how much is being lost. There are so many possible ways to make mistakes with online advertising.


Unfortunately, just as with banner advertising, many people simply don't know when and how to correctly market themselves online. Here is a perfect example; I had a listener from my podcast ask me if he should buy banner space on a web site recently. The site he wanted to advertise on was receiving 300,000 hits a day. The price was actually very reasonable. The problem was that it wasn't his target audience. He was going to advertise on a site where the visitors were between 13 and 19. The product he was selling is geared towards consumers 21 and over.

Getting back to adsense... Adsense, in my opinion, shouldn't be on sites that sell a product or service. If you owned a store front, you wouldn't place your competitors sign in your window would you? Would you endorse them? What do you think it says to your visitors? It tells them a lot, including the fact that your service doesn't make enough revenues to keep you from having to sell space. It also makes them wonder whether your products or services are of the best quality and gives them an open invitation to check out your competitors. It makes it look as though you are selling out your company and don't take your own business seriously. Besides, would you make more on a sale or on a click? Google has drop the cost per-click pay out, meaning that no matter how cheap your items are or how much volume you move, you are still highly likely to make less money on a click.

You would be better off joining an affiliate program and place ads on your site that complement your service or product than allow ads that directly compete with you. That would come across as more of a service to your visitors. For that matter, just go to websites that offer services that complement yours and strike up a deal of some sort, even if it's just a link exchange. The more you do for your visitors, the better off you will be. If contextual ads go this route, it may be worth it to have them on your site.
Same goes for PPC. I have seen so many do-it-yourself-ers waste money on bad keywords, poorly written ads and an overall misconception of how the process works. I wonder how much Google has made off of poor marketing efforts.

People should either hire a professional or have a better understanding of how online marketing works. Just because a new form of advertising comes out doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea for your business. Don't waste money on bad keywords or ads that will bring in traffic looking for something you don't have or are loosely associated with. Not only will you waste PPC funds, you will also be remembered and avoided by those who may have a need for what you do offer in the future.


Joe is an SEO Consultant visit his site for more information, read his SEO articles, listen to his podcast on SEO or check out his SEO forum all at http://www.mr-seo.com