Online marketing is a tough business, not tough physically, but in other ways. There are so many people out there trying to compete with eachother for the same prize, so how do you stay ahead of the pack?

One of the best ways is to use as many of the marketing and promoting options available online, and there are a huge number to choose from. I will list some of the better avenues I have used and are still using, as I know they work and work well.


# GOOGLE ADSENSE #

Google Adsense is a great tool for any website because it is easy to use, doesn't cost anything to run and comes with full support by the biggest frontrunner in online advertising. The best part about Adsense is each and every add that is placed on your site is preconfigured for the search engines, this means that every Adsense add will be on topic with your website pages so that you can sell and know you will not be sandboxed (penalised and removed from your hard earned position in their rankings).

Adsense will allow up to 4 add blocks per webpage and you can use the service on as many pages as you want, you can configure your personal Adsense settings so that certain websites will not be displayed and you can choose from many different add styles. They also support multiple payment options (to you that is). In my opinion Google Adsense is the best way to diversify your income while knowing you are search engine compliant.


# Affiliate marketing #

Yes we all know about affiliates, but did you know that there are two main types? And one of these will pay better than the other. As you know, all you do is display their code on your website and wait for the revenue, but did you know that some will pay you on two levels? This means that whoever clicks to their site from yours will be tagged with a 'cookie' and whoever they refer to the same site, and buy, within the specified time frame, you will be credited with a predetermined commission as well.

This is much better than being paid on just one level of commission. So when you are next searching for a good affiliate product, remember to see if they have a two tier commission payment system.

# Value Click #

This company provides marketing solutions to some major online companies, names such as 'Commission Junction', 'Mediaplex', 'Pricerunner' and more. The combined market coverage that this offers is huge and as such offers you links to some excellent services. They range from Affiliate opportunities (an absolutely massive range) to advertising avenues and more. With these options you will also have access to Yahoo! and Overture search avenues.


# Clickbank #

With Clickbank you have access to more than one type of income avenue as well, they have over 10,000 product vendors and over 100,000 active affiliates. Commissions range from 1% to 75% on the sale of digital products, and Clickbank is one of the leading funds transfer and payment companies online, so you will not have to worry about privacy and banking security. There are plenty more out there on the net, but these are the leaders, so if you start with these and then broaden your range you will have a good platform to base yourself.


There are plenty more monetization options out there, but if you start with these companies you will have a good platform from which to operate. The one thing you always must remember with any type of inpage advertising is to always keep it on subject, as the search engines will penalise you (possibly drop you in their sand box) for multi topic pages.