Putting landing pages to work effectively on your site can be a great benefit to you, especially if you are targeting search engine traffic, and who isn't? While landing pages aren't any different from other content on your site, they are typically more defined, and typically act as though they are a single part of your site - you don't really want visitors going away from this page until they convert into a sale, a visitor to another site, or have accomplished what you wanted them to. It's that simple when you break it down.

However, there are a few basics to working with landing pages that can make all the difference. Many of these tips hold true for other areas that you work on when you build your site(s) to generate profit. You have to continually test to see what works, so the advice below is simply a basis that you should modify and tweak as you work on each site/project.

1. Provide something useful to your visitors. This may be as little as answering one of their questions or giving away a few chapters of an e-book for free. They don't want to see a blank page.
2. Tell your visitors what they should be doing. Often, this is placed in a video, but you come off as a scam extremely quickly when you have it automatically play, pop-up, or in a format that isn't integrated into the site well. 
3. Headlines and transitions throughout the page should be clear and definitive. They need to flow. Don't overdo the amount of headlines or text – balance everything out.
4. Following up from number three, use bullets and other forms of separation to ensure that the page is easy to read.
5. Write like a book, but much shorter. The introduction should grab the person's attention, the middle should include the meat of what the article is about, and the ends should tie everything together. If you can't do all this within a "screen length," you'll have to work on writing condensed, more effective copy.
6. Look at what your competition is doing to ensure that you are in line with what visitors are expecting when they visit your site.
7. Choose a hosting company or services that are able to deliver your site quickly and clean manner. 
8. Cut the cord to external navigation, other than anything that may be related to what you are trying to accomplish. Remember, they came to this page for a reason – keep them here until they have fulfilled what you are both looking for.
9. Useless 'stuff' - take it off the page as soon as possible. This goes in line with number eight, but is extremely important. You don't have to associate a picture of yourself with the product unless you have done studies that it gives the visitors a better idea of who they are really helping and not someone they are simply supporting.
10. Add visual elements, but keep them simple and only place them on the page if they are really effective. If anything, choose a default CSS, blog, or WordPress template and customize it thoroughly to your liking and in a manner that helps attain your goals.
11. See what works. Continually test the page against other versions to see which one(s) work the best.
12. The purpose of landing pages is to separate what may appear to be an "ad" from your site and focus all the energy and purpose into a single page. You don't have to promote your product or services through every post, just this single page. That's what makes them more effective.
13. Create an experience for your visitors. Like larger companies, you can create campaigns around products and ensure that your visitors return from the site (even if they didn't purchase or "convert") with a better experience than they were expecting. 
14. Have some confidence statement, such as testimonials (and real ones at that), which will help you better promote your product.

Most of us were brought up with the proper ways to spend money and how to save money for the future. You have to apply the same principle to your efforts online. Starting for free is definitely an option, but for most people, it isn't the preferred method, because they expect costs to be involved in everything they do.

If you happen to be one of these people, you have to realize there are are a few rules to making money online first:

– You don't have to be rich, just have access to a computer and Internet to begin making money online.
– The main key to making money online, of course, is bringing in more money than you are spending to create that money. While most people online don't have to maintain inventories of products, it is a good idea to ensure that you are able to maintain an edge over you competitors.
– Don't let anyone take advantage of you and ensure that you aren't being ripped off. Know what you should be expecting to pay for various items, ranging form hosting to website design.
– Just because you are telling people to purchase your product, this doesn't mean that you should fall for the bribes of others. You don't have to purchase e-books from others that might never be read.

By the time you begin adding up the costs of some of the gimmicks that beginners purchase when they start their first blogs or website, it becomes harder for them to begin advertising their site and making money on their own. After all, your main goal should be to make money, not spend money.

As the ninth most popular Internet destination, Amazon.com can certainly appear as a daunting place to try to make money, but it certainly isn't. Through their Amazon Associates program, you can review and sell any of their products on your site. Although they are moving away from PPC traffic as a way of generating sales, you can still try your luck at using the links in honest reviews. After all, you can buy nearly anything from Amazon today.

We'll assume that you don't have any type of site setup yet. While many people are able to create a simple site within a few minutes, for this experiment, you don't have anything setup and no background knowledge. The main problem here is time. As previously stated, it may only take a few minutes to create a website, but until you are able to draw in links, traffic, and create a useful website, it will be days, if not weeks, until everything is setup.

The First Step: Choose a Niche or Topic

Think about a category that you want to write about or are able to create a wide array of posts/descriptions for based on previous knowledge. Although you could simply copy the editorial reviews (putting some of it into your own words), you have to appeal to the people visiting your site or blog. They need to be aware that you have some background and know what you are talking about.

Second Step: Learning What it Takes

Setting up a site can be a hard task for some to do. You'll need to research how to insert images, text, and links into a typical site (HTML) and how to style them using CSS. Using a pre-built template may be your best option, but you have less control if you go this course.

Next, you should do some research on what works in terms of marketing products to others and promoting your blog. It is best to get started now, versus later, as it gives you more options when you write your content and are optimizing it for search engines.

Third Step: Purchasing a Site and Starting Out

I'd suggest that you purchase a hosting account and domain of your own. Even though you still have the ability to earn with Blogger and other free services, when it comes to managing your files and ensuring that your site remains "yours," it is best that you use a paid plan.

Choose a domain name that really works for you. Don't use your name in it, unless you are promoting your own products that you sell through Amazon, and this is less likely, unless you are a larger publisher/merchant.

If you go the most affordable route, you could be investing as little as $100/year into your site, more expensive plans can cost into the thousands, but you are just starting out, so you don't need thousands of megabytes of transfer or storage.

Fourth Step: Begin Creating Content

The next step is to install the blog or some type of software onto your site that allows you to manage all of your content. Once you have accomplished this (the first time can be confusing, but still remain fairly easy if you follow the instructions), start creating the content. Take a product that you have used – that may be a book, movie, or music album that you enjoyed – and post images, links, and your own review of it.

This may be a great way to get started making money online, especially if you enjoy reviewing your favorite products. Keep in mind that publishing negative reviews won't always harm your sales numbers, as it informs your readers to what they can expect, and may send them to another one of your products.

Fifth Step: Finalization

Each day (or at a fairly frequent interval), create a new piece of content for your site. They don't have to all be reviews, as you should mix it up between reviews and tips/advice on using the products in real life.

Other options from Amazon include the aStore, which handles all of your sales and your hosting. However, there may be costs involved at some point, so you should probably continue working on your own project and sites rather than going the "easy" way.

Conclusion

While I covered many of the basics, you need to be aware that a lot of additional factors go into play when it comes to traffic versus sales figures. Although you can certainly make a lot of money selling others' products, you have to realize that it doesn't come easy and without effort on your part.

Getting started, it might be difficult for you to get word out about your website. Even if you don't plan on ever monetizing your site, it would always be nice if you had an audience to fall back on if you would want to generate some form of revenue.

Traffic, by definition, means a constant stream of people coming to your website, which can also be broken down into specific periods of time. The more you have (as a general rule), the more profit you can make, at least compared to if you didn't have any traffic.

In order to attain traffic, there are several ways that you can do this, although one of the most popular method is by "purchasing" traffic, or advertising your blog. There are several ways that you can pursue this, too.

Through Sponsorships - Contacting another blogger or website owner can lead to a sponsorship, in which you may return favors (links in the sidebar or banners), and you will receive traffic from this. While this can be free, most likely, it isn't, due to the nature of "sponsorships."

Traditional Advertising - Purchasing advertising on another site will help you get word out about your site. Depending on how much cash you want to devote to this, you could purchase several monthly ads on sites.

Search Engine Advertising - Through AdWords and competing programs, you can market your site, although you have to know what you are doing, whether this is really a good value for you.

Word of Mouth - Tell other people (including through email, commenting on other sites, etc.) about your site and what purpose it has being on the Internet.

Releasing a Product/Promotion - Running a contest, having a promotion, or giving something out for free are all forms of advertising, and each can be quite beneficial for your blog, especially in the long-term, in terms of providing value to your readers.

Conclusion

Although there are other ways, both free and paid, to promote your blog, I wanted to stick with the basics, the formats that nearly everyone is familiar with. Without saying, it is a difficult struggle advertising your blog, while trying to remain relevant and not spamming people.

Have you ever practiced advertising on other sites - was it successful?