By Daniel D Dwase

Honestly speaking, if you want an easy way to get your site plastered all over the internet, advertising using search engines could do that for you.

You've seen all the ads before, on the sidebars of millions of websites, on your Yahoo or Gmail pages. Search engine advertisement is everywhere.

So it makes sense that if you want your site to appear everywhere, then you should pay for advertising on search engines, right?

It really all depends on your financial resources. If you have the budget for it, and you'll need a big budget - then go for it. It only takes minutes to set up and have ads dispersed across those millions of sites and email hubs.

If you compose a persuasive ad unit, you could pique the interests of possibly millions of people. But how much do you really have to spend?

Designating a few dollars/pounds a day to an ad campaign is not going to bring in the numbers you need.

You need a high volume of visitors to achieve the results you're really looking for and unless you're willing to pay a high volume of money in search engine advertising costs, you'll almost certainly end up dissatisfied with the results.

You've heard the cliche that "it takes money to make money" - advertising on search engines works best for people who already have the money to invest and already have a system in place that will allow them to bring in more money to cover the advertising costs.

When I first started my first sites, I thought advertising on search engines was a surefire way to help bring in the potential customers I needed. I thought this new stream of visitors would undoubtedly lead to increased sales. I couldnÕt wait to see how many visitors would start pouring in. I set my budget and prepaid my account.

A few days later I returned to find that yes, new visitors had found their way to my site, but my account was in the red by $20 (£13). In terms of revenue, only two of the 60 or so new visitors actually made a purchase and my commissions barely covered the advertising costs. Needless to say, I was very frustrated.

There had to be another way, I thought.

There are other low cost ways to advertise your site. Use your Twitter account to generate short advertisements.

Include a captivating headline and place your link at the end. Since Twitter only allows short messages, you'll have to make very focused snippets, so only focus on one product or site at a time.

An important tip: Don't abuse this and overwhelm your followers with ad after ad. Space them out over a few days. Keep in mind that your followers may be following tons of other people and your ads could get overlooked.

For this reason, it won't hurt to repeat ads, but I suggest you develop an ad cycle and go through a cycle before resorting to repeating ads. (Read "9 Tips to Generate Free Targeted Website Traffic" for more suggestions.)

If you don't have a Twitter account, set up a free one right away, although you'll have to keep in mind that you'll need some time to pull in some followers.

To start generating followers quickly, search around and start following people with the same interests, the more you follow, the better because most people usually return the favor and end up following you. Their followers might notice your pic and decide to follow you, too.

Leave search engine advertising for the big boys with the big money. If you invest your time and money wisely, one day you may become one of those big boys. Just remember me and slide a little of your big money my way :0)

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