Too often, folks who are starting out to plan an Internet business put the cart before the horse. They spend much of their time, energy and money devising devilishly clever domain names, getting an expensive hosting company, maybe even spending a lot of bucks up front for a web designer to come up with a fancy site design.

It is laudable to have a super-duper name and image, but you can have ones that are incredible and still will go nowhere because no one knows you are out there on the World Wide Web! You have to advertise.

When formulating plans for a new Web-based business, it is absolutely crucial to think beyond the image and prepare plans for advertising early on in the game and, more importantly, to find the type of promotion that is going to be affordable. Which leads us to the question: how and where can you advertise your site?

Consider the following:

Offline

Placing a small ad showcasing your web business in newspapers or trade magazines (specific to the business you are promoting) can nail down the area of the population you want to target.

If you are selling teddy bears, that ad could be in craft magazines or teddy bear magazines!

If it is auto accessories, your objective is to reach enthusiasts through car magazines. Shop the magazine racks and peruse the various entrepreneur magazines.

Personal contact

Hand out business cards with your online store URL and description to friends, neighbors and business owners. Post your card on bulletin boards at supermarkets or your local drycleaners.

If you are selling pet products, put your card on the notice boards at your local pet stores and ask your vet if you can post your card at his place of business.

Online

There are several methods of advertising online that are effective although some are free and some are not.

Let us look at the free (if time and labor-intensive) ones first.

You can submit articles to article directories manually. It means methodically going through the numerous directory participants, weeding out the ones that do not pertain to your particular venue.

For instance, if you are selling decorative accessories, you will skip past a site that promotes MLM or making money online. Sometimes you can only determine this after laboriously searching the directory site to determine if they have the appropriate category for your merchandise or service.

The same thing is basically applicable when you submit to ezines and there you will also have to submit manually.

You may submit your article to a service that will post it on multiple article directory sites but there will, of course, be a fee for this service and it may be for a limited period of time. This method of advertising can bring targeted traffic to your site but it may only be occasional and limited at that.

The way to most consistently bring targeted traffic to your site is PPC advertising. Pay-per-click ads put your tightly constructed, dynamically worded ad right in front of the potential customer who has typed in keywords describing what you are promoting. But there is a catch. You have to bid for that spot on the (you hope and pray) first page that comes up, not on the 28th page!

For instance, Google Ads allow you to bid to get the primo spot. And every time someone clicks on your ad, you have to pay a specified, top dollar amount. This can get costly if you are just entertaining lookers and not buyers. Your competition may also click on your ads and that will result in higher bills for you at the end of the month.

Unless you have an unlimited budget this may not be the correct route for you. That is, unless you have a way to eliminate the ppc ad cost. Yes, there is a way to do this and it is perfectly legal. Not only that but Google actually endorses it!