You always have marketing decisions to make as an affiliate businessperson. You have to choose where you will spend your time and efforts when it comes to promoting your products. Two methods available for spurring traffic to your website are article marketing and online-classified advertising. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, yet they do work well together.

Article marketing affords you the chance to get widespread distribution of your links. If you choose a good article distribution service, they will get your content to numerous specialty publishers. Article submissions to an article distribution service with an extensive publishing list are best. Efficient marketing is submitting content to a distribution service that offers a broad spectrum of publishers and categories.

Online-classified advertising also allows for a widespread readership of your advertisements. Choose a classified site that already has a lot of ad activity. That's a sure sign it's one of the more popular one and has traffic swarming its way. Check that they have an extensive category list for posting ads. You want as much choice as you do with article marketing.

Article marketing allows you to implement an article promotion campaign in a cost-effective manner. An article distribution service that allows you to submit unlimited articles is what you want. In this way, you write to your heart's content, submit, and let the service handle the rest. You can then get back to writing. It's the best way to get an endless stream of your links out into cyberspace.

Online-classified advertising is cost-effective if you shop around. There are many reasonable-priced classified portals on the web. Of course, there are the multiple free sites as well. Just make sure these free ones have appropriate categories for your affiliate business. It also wouldn't hurt to double-check that the free classified site actually has significant traffic.

One feature of many online-classified advertising sites is the ability to target geographic locations. You may actually write your ads and then choose what city, state, or country you want the ad to appear. This is highly targeted marketing as you may write your ads to suit a certain region's interests. You would want to target your affiliate fishing gear to those who live on the Florida coast.

One disadvantage of article marketing is the fact that you have to make articles generic. While you will pack them with useful information, you will not engage in "sales talk" as such. Articles are for mild pre-selling. Articles will lead readers to your website where you begin the actual selling.

Online-classified advertising allows you to let the salesperson in you shine. You can publicize your product in an advertisement on a classified site. After all, readers of classified ads want the quick, lean text that is all part of selling. They want to get the gist of an affiliate product fast to make buying decisions. When they look at advertisements on classified sites, they are not looking for long treatises.

However, because of that, online-classified advertising does not give a reader the depth of detail that article marketing does. Online ads are snapshots of your affiliate product. Article writing for widespread distribution is a discussion on an affiliate product topic.

This is where you can use online-classified advertising and article marketing together. Include a link to your article content in your advertisements. A reader interested in your affiliate product, but not at the buying stage, can link to more information. Your article content will give them useful information and lead them to your website. It's there where you complete the selling process. It all started with a short classified advertisement that led to more information elsewhere.

Article marketing and online-classified advertising are two methods you may use to build your affiliate business. Use them individually, harnessing each one's unique attributes. Use them together to drive more traffic to your website in an economical way.