How can "small operator" make money on Internet? Paid listings and PPC = high cost, no ROI. What's the secret?

Trying to make money on the Internet. During past 2 month campaign, made absolutely "zero" dollars. Only wind up spending more on PPC and Paid Listing campaigns. The "host" or "advertising agency" is making money from me, but I'm receiving nothing from customers in return on investment. My site has Google rating, great navigation, customer friendly, good products, in health fitness weight loss category. However, the only sales in past two months came "accidentally" from a "free-for-all" submission page I did for the "Hoodia Desert Burn" natural appetite suppressant. This was a free campaign that cost no money at all!

Why is ROI so much LESS when I PAY major advertising agencies (even Yahoo Search Marketing) for pay-per-click, or paid sponsor listings?

Where is the money going? Why no return on investment? More importantly, how can someone on a low budget get a fair shot at ROI? If standard web sales conversion rate is .01, then I should be seeing some sales here, but there are none!

If your ROI is poor with PPC, then it means that you are not reaching your desired target audience, or your ad is too broad that what you are getting are clicks from visitors curious to click on your ad but not interested enough to buy. Running PPC campaigns is part science, part art.

Your sentiments are captured perfectly in the article at Internet Retailer magazine (subscribe to this magazine if you are selling on the Internet) "Are these guys making too much money?"
http://www.internetretailer.com/article.... , which is about the growing frustration of PPC users with the increasing bidding competition, rising prices, but not enough ROI.

The article mentions that there is an increasing over reliance on search for traffic. Here are some other methods you want to try to get more traffic to your site without busting your pockets with PPC:

1. Strive to improve conversion in your site. Conversion is not just a result of how visitors got to your site, but what your site encourages or tells them to do when they arrive on it. Simple things like making the BUY IT NOW button bigger or using red or putting it above the fold may enhance conversion. Or putting your 1-800 number prominently or certifications such as the Hacker Free can induce more confidence into your buyers.

2. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important -- and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools. Get a Recommend this Site script from websites such as cgiscripts.com and similar directories of scripts. Some even go as far as giving incentives to those who recommend the site to their friends.

3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.

4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News.

I am pretty new at both of these sites but ive already started to make money on these sites. Ive tryied other sites and i hade the same problem...no money!!! i hope this helps

http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCW02...

http://hits4pay.com/members/in... Report It

i hope it helped Report It

You can get some brain storming Ideas on marketing,promoting,advertising and geting more targeted traffic here.
Hope this helps,
Have a great day,
Surfin.

I started my own online business years ago and fell into the PPC trap too. I learned so much from my mistakes that I became an internet marketing and search engine optimization specialist. Relying on PPC campaigns is not a good long term strategy at all, but can be effective sometimes if you know what you're doing. Visit www.wordtracker.com or www.keyworddiscovery.com for some help on picking good keywords for your site.

Otherwise, it sounds like you either need to hire a good Internet marketer and seo or learn how to do it yourself (assuming you have some web experience and enough time and resources to learn). Judging from what you have said your site probably isn't optimized at all or at least good enough to be found for targeted keyword terms by the major search engines. I bet you haven't got many links pointing to your site either. Are you listed in every relevant directory for your products? Have you done any marketing research (online or traditional) to determine who is most likely to buy your products? Did you develop a business plan before you went into business? How old is your website? Do you have tracking software to monitor the behavior of visitors to your site and track web metrics (I recommend www.webtrends.com if not)? Have you studied the competition and done everything they are doing and then some? You are not going to get a good conversion rate unless you do all of these things, and do them right.

There are also other methods you can use as well, like subscriber lists, RSS feeds, ect. I would highly recommend that you get a consultation from an Internet Marketer and Search Engine Optimization Specialist before you dump any more money into PPC campaigns and paid ads. You can contact me at moonshine27858@yahoo.com if you'd like me to take a look at your site. Otherwise look into search engine optimization yourself, get a good seo software program, and optimize your site. Then go get links, lots and lots of links.