Knowledge is power!  The more you know about the competition the better-off you are.  Search engines are the best way to gain knowledge since they allow you to both research the competition's offers and to find out their methods for getting good SE rankings.  There is a reason why the first listing comes first, and you need to find out what it is.  You also need to know what the competition is offering since it will give you some guidance as to where you stand.  It also gives you room to analyze your offers andto create a critical differentiating factor that may push your listing up in the SE rankings.  This in turn will give you a better image in the customer's mind.

Targeted Requests

While researching your competition, it is worth your time to check on who's  linking to them.  To find this out, you can use Alta Vista or Google and enter the the complete string
link: http://YourCompetitor.com.  Note: you will also need to search for link: http://www.YourCompetitor.com since SEs see the two addresses differently.

In the search string above the word "link" followed by a colon and a space is a critical part of the string.

Find those people linking to your competition, and visit their site. If it is a resource page, you have a very good chance of getting a favorable response to a request that they link to you.  If you find that those sites are linking specifically to your competition craft your e-mail to stress the added  value your site will give to the very useful content on their page.  Be polite since they are not obligated to link to you; tell them why they should consider your site and why you would like to be on theirs.  Make it short and sweet, 3 lines are plenty.  Spend a long time coming up with the "right" 3 lines since you are asking people to link to you without linking back to them (we are against commerce sites linking out to any site), or paying them any money.  If you find that most links are affiliate links then emphasize your affiliate program (if you don't have one, get one!).

Another set of targeted requests should go to the people who rank on the first search results page for your keywords. Don't expect your competitors to link to you, but you will find pages that discuss your industry, product, or target customer ranking very high.  Most of these pages are info pages or mini directories.   Many of them will list you, especially if your product is unique and will interest their site visitors.

Paid Advertising

There are lots of ways to generate traffic by paying reasonable amounts of money, especially now that online advertising rates are at their lowest.  One of the most famous SEs that will allow you to bid for keywords is GoTo.com.  Bear in mind that your listing may already be on GoTo and you may not necessarily want to pay for being listed higher.  It may also cost you a lot of money depending on the keyword you seek.  This again ties in with how your business model fits into the market and its competitive forces.  A crowded market is usually crowded for a reason, and rarely allows you a profit margin that will keep you in business.   Unless you are a large player in the market, you will not have the economies of scale to be able to make money on low margins and lots of advertising expenses.

At any rate, select the keywords you want and run a search on GoTo.  See who comes first and second and how much they paid.  Are you willing to pay that much for them?  Note that GoTo's first 3 listings show up at top search positions in AOL, Alta Vista, Netscape, and a few others so it is worth being #1 or #2 in GoTo if you can get it.  Again it all depends on your market and the keywords sought.  The more specific your keywords are, the cheaper you can get high placement, and the more targeted the potential customer is.  Your universe of viewers will be much smaller but very focused in return, which is a much better deal.

Bidding on engine placements can be a useful tool, but we prefer partnerships with content sites that have a high rate of visitors in your target customer group.  Many such sites, particularly the smaller ones, are desperate for cash but are well linked on the net.  You can identify such sites by doing some research on the internet.  See what reference sites in your industry pop-up frequently.  Another area of interest are sites from other industries that cater to the same kind of customer as yours. These are often undiscovered gold mines that can deliver phenomenal results for very little expense.

Your Banner Ads.

You will need banner ads for your paid advertising, affiliate program, partnered link exchanges, or on content sites you create.  In many cases your banner ads are the first interaction between you and your prospective customers. There are many benefits of a banner ad, including the branding  effect which is frequently overlooked because it is not measurable. There are MANY ideas and suggestions as to how to boost the results on your banner ads which mainly deal with increasing your click through rate.  Test them all and see what works for you.   Get feedback from everyone you know, spouse, friend, mother, son, father, neighbor... etc.  Consumer behavior is hard to predict and with the added variables of the Internet, it gets even harder.  Also remember that while the click through rate is important, you need to think of the effect of the message itself.  A less than accurate message may bring a less qualified customer to your website who is very unlikely to do business with you.