Next you place your ad on a site, in a publication, or in a search engine program that is touted by everyone "in the know" to drive thousands of eager customers to your site. You pull the lever, your ad flies to thousands, you wait -- and nothing!

It's the worst felling in the world. You spend all that time and money to get people to your site and either no one shows up..OR...you get a ton of people to your site and none of them buy.

By now, everyone who is reading this article is nodding their head in agreement. We've ALL had that experience and probably more than once.

What went wrong? The problem with a great deal of advertising these days is it doesn't draw REAL customers to your site. This can be due to several problems, all of which you need to be aware of.

1. Many pay-per-click programs are the victims of software that automatically clicks your link. This software, which is apparently in wide use, clicks away at your link hundreds to thousands of times per day while using up all your ad budget. Wonder why none of those thousands of clicks you paid for sold anything? They probably weren't REAL people clicking the links.

2. Many ad programs that reward people for participating get folks who are in it for the money they can make by responding. Will these people BUY anything from you? Probably not. They're only interested in milking the advertising program and NOT buying any of your products or services. As far as you're concerned, these aren't REAL customers.

3. Probably the best way to improve response for your ad is to offer a free item or service. That brings in new customers in droves. But are they REAL customers. More often than not, people who want your FREE stuff aren't really interested in your PAID stuff. They aren't motivated to buy anything, and therefore, aren't your REAL customers.

4. Sometimes you can advertise in very powerful places, like on TV, on radio, or in your town's big newspaper. But the people who buy from you don't necessarily read, listen to, or watch that type of media. Or if they do, they can't buy from you or even remember who you are when they experience your ad.

For example, if your web site or telephone number is what you're trying to get people to respond to, you'll have a dickens of a time if you're using radio ads while people are driving to work. Sure, lots of prospects will hear your ad, but they aren't in a position to act on your information or even write down your web site URL. Your ad is wasted and all those thousands of prospects will probably never be REAL customers for you.

Now that I've given you several very common examples of how otherwise good advertising is foiled, let me lead you to one type of advertising that is remarkable in its ability to drive REAL customers to your web site.

Of course, I'm talking about search engines. When Joe wants a certain type of clothing, he jumps online, heads to his favorite search engine, and enters the search terms for the shirt he's thinking of. When Joe arrives at your site, he knows what he wants, he's looking at exactly what he wants, and within a few seconds, he buys from you. Now that's a REAL customer, as real as they get.

True search engine marketing is a highly complicated art and science that is simply out of reach for most small businesses. Thankfully, there are new services that make it their business to have pages representing your industry that are ranked high on search engines. For a very modest fee, these companies will direct their targeted traffic to your site. You'll get a heavy flow of REAL customers.