We all make excuses for not testing our online advertising… especially, if the results are not what we hoped for. But the truth is: there’s no good excuse for not testing since it’s the only way to discover which ad will get the best results… before you’ve committed your marketing budget!

Here are 7 things to keep in mind to make testing your ads easy and effective:

1. Decide in advance what you’re trying to achieve. How will you judge the success of your ad campaign? Click-through rate? Conversions? And what results are you looking for? Decide before you start testing.

2. Be clear about what you’re testing. Is it the offer, the copy, or the graphics? Remember, ambiguity is the enemy of testing! Keep it simple by testing one “element” at a time, and make sure the only difference between the test ads is that one element.

3. Get the biggest bang for your buck. Unless you’ve done lots of testing with a particular ad, don’t just look for incremental improvement… focus on getting big results! For example, why test the impact of tweaking a word when a different offer could double your results?  

4. Make sure you’re testing “apples to apples”. Test different versions of your online ad against the same audience over the same time periods. For example, test ads against the same search engine or ad network so that everything is “apples to apples”.

5. Let your ads run long enough to get meaningful results. A month is a good place to start… anything less and you may have a hard time figuring out whether the results were “significant”. Or worse, you could jump to the wrong conclusion! And when in doubt, run the test longer.

6. Review the test results with your goals in mind. See if the results show a meaningful difference between the ads you’re testing. But remember… the “winning” ad still needs to meet your goals; otherwise, you should consider testing another idea.

7. Make testing a way of (marketing) life. Even when your test is done and your best performing ad is running… keep coming up with new ideas to test against so that you’re always improving your results!

Testing is an easy and objective way to determine what ad campaigns will work best with your audience. So no more excuses… :<)

I’ve got a riddle for you. What type of online advertising is free, will establish you as an expert, and can improve your website’s popularity with search engines… all while making it easy for others to drive traffic to your website. The answer: article marketing. So why aren’t you doing it? You should be!

What exactly is article marketing? It’s simple. You write an article and then submit it to article directories, websites, and blogs that are looking for quality content. They post your article, including your bio and a link to your website… and then good things start to happen!

How to get started?

• Write about what you know. Make writing easy. Write about topics that you’re interested in and have plenty to say about. Just make sure your articles are related to your business or industry. That way when readers check out your website they’ll know they’ve come to the right place. And no selling please! Your articles are for educating and informing with your reader’s interests in mind. So when writing articles, think coach and teacher… not salesman.

• Keep it keyword rich. You want to make it easy for the search engines to find your article. No surprise right? Make sure your article title includes keywords you care about. It’s also a good idea to sprinkle keywords into the article text… but always remember it’s about engaging your readers not over-stuffing keywords.

• Have a compelling article title. The headline of your article is the only thing that most people read. So make it compelling. That way they’ll have no choice but to read on. How do you do that? Make your article title provocative. Try writing it in the form of a question that draws readers in. Or phrase it as if you’re going to let them in on a little known secret. You get the idea!

• Write articles often. Get in the habit of writing lots of articles. Volume counts… as one or two won’t do. That’s why it’s so important to write about what you know and like. Look for ideas in your favorite magazines and blogs. And from conversations with your prospects and customers. The good news is that your articles don’t need to be long. Figure 300 to 600 words. But you do need to write at least two articles a month (or more!)

• Don’t forget your bio. Besides your article title, your bio is the most important part of your article. Why? Because it’s where you get to brand yourself and include your website’s URL. This is where the selling happens so definitely add a few sentences about you and your company. The goal here is to get prospects to read about you and visit your website.

When you’re ready… start with publishing to the article directories. It’s easy and free. Go ahead and submit to all the top article directories such as: EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, Buzzle.com, SearchWarp, GoArticles, and IdeaMarketers.  Just search “article directories” to find more.

And keep a look out for blogs and websites in your industry that want guest authors (you can be one!) Having your article show up in a popular blog can mean thousands of dollars of exposure for your business.

Happy article writing!