The question i ask is very debateable. Do you need money for advertising? Well you can go either way and it is possible that you are successful. But what is successful, thats upto you for set. What is your goal when you start a business. If you reach that then you are successful.

So it is not a good way to just give the SEO Company some money and expect some good results. You always have to be active with them and be on top of the game. This is all what web business is about.

Here is Balkhis equation for advertising which we follow through to advertise:

Time x 9 = Advertisng
(3)Time x (6)Money = Advertising

Now, the method I use the most is the first one because i believe that one is more productive and give better results in a long term. While i use the second equation just to get a boost but you can’t just use this equation forever because it can end in a deadly result. As many know, there have been a huge catastrophe started by google against Paid Links and not many webmasters know what else to do other than paid links. The best way i find is, attract the users (You guys are probably thinking well what the heck does that mean). Well that means you need to offer something that will attract your targetted audience. I mean a simple example is my site right here. I am offering free advice, and my targetted audience is webmasters who are looking to get the cutting edge over the rest and need advice. I am offering it, well some say well i offer this product too. Then the question takes the stance of typical economics class topic Marginal Benefit and Opportunity Cost. You might be offering something but is it free or paid. What good does that offer your users. Everyone loves free stuff. Wait a minute did I just say that. Well, yes that is true, and most expect free stuff to be crap because thats what the society has defined it to be, but what if you offer your users something free, and Good. Now that makes a difference.

In my past, the main advertising method i used was and still am using it is offering what my user wants. Maybe you need money to make this free, or it can already be free in peices all over the web, and you just make it come together. A perfect example is my recent post which contains Icons for Webmasters and Users. Now it is not very often that you find tons of icons all in one website, or atleast all good ones, so i searched the VAST Scope of internet and found the ones i liked, and put it up on my website. Wait a minute, does that mean i am stealing content from other websites. Ofcourse not as long as i cite them or have in advance permission from the authors to eliminate the citation. There is absolutely nothing wrong in saying that you got the resource from somewhere else. It is better to cite the source rather than not because that implies that it is yours and you made it and/or you own full rights to it. If the product is GNU, and the TOS say you can redistribute, but not sell you may put the downloads on your server. Often times, the author of websites get upset because someone else is using their content. Well a perfect technique to make them happy is give them their credit. Second you can do to establish even better credibility is in the download link, link to their page, so they don’t entirely loose their page views unless the author gives you permission to upload and offer download from your server. Also some authors mind, if you just copy and paste their .zip file link, so people just click on their zip. Well that is not appreciated by many also, so the best way i suggest is link to their download page unless specified. Now be sure to be kind to them, and write some kind remarks about them in the introduction or at the conclusion of your page where ever you are offering someone else’s product.

Now you can see that i am using this technique myself in the icon post itself. So now, if you come about and exactly copy my post word to word and just say you got the freebies from the original source, that is WRONG because I put in the work of collecting it, so you want to mention how each source was used. (Very Important)

All this takes is time, not necessarily the money because you are searching the web yourself. On bigger scale, you have groups that searching for you and that involves a little money too.

Another way you can offer freebies is hire someone else to develop that product and give you full rights so you can redistribute. Well, does that cost money. Heck yes i just used the word HIRE. If you find someone who is willing to work for free send them my way also ;). Always analyze your Marginal Benefit, and Opportunity cost of your actions meaning what do you have to sacrifice in order to get the product. In our case money, but what is the marginal benefit? It does not mean what you are getting back, but how much is benefiting you on top of your investment. If your marginal benefit outweighs the cost then you should go for that promotion. Simple example, I am a freelance web-designer myself. I used and still do sometimes design all of my websites and all the clients work. I came to a university found a group of people that shared the same interest as me and convinced them to join me. Now, i work on some parts of the site, and they work on the others. I have to pay those people as well, but does that benefit me in the long run? I can easily spend the $150 i spend to get full rights to a decent sponsored theme for wordpress. This is life long advertisement because as long as that download link is alive, someone will use that, or i can spend it on adwords and spend it in 3 days and get tons of visitors just those 3 days, and maybe few from those ton visit back. Choice is yours, I know if it was my choice, i would pick the life-long investment.

Does that mean that i am saying all the paid advertising is wrong, and you should not buy blog posts / sitewide banner / textlinks / adwords and all others. Absolutely not. I will go into more details about the paid advertising in my next blog post.

I hope this post helped atleast a few of you. I am open to all questions and answers. If you ever use any of my techniques feel free to reply and let your trial period be the first proof of whether they work or not because i know they work due to the fact that i have been using this over years in past and still am using it.

Your comments are welcome.