Success in online marketing, as in any other type of sales, depends on the marketer's ability to optimize his time and efforts to their fullest potential, i.e., to work as efficiently as possible. The following six recommendations all work toward that goal.

1. MAKE EVERY E-TOOL & SERVICE PAY YOU

With all the affiliate systems out there, it is very possible to use services and tools that pay you. By using these and promoting them, you not only gain free quality services, but can make money at the same time.

And, while there are many sites that SEEM to offer free services, make no mistake: they are exacting their pound of flesh, either by gaining traffic (which is rewarded by a higher ranking) or in some other fashion. And, while this may be an acceptable trade-off, it squanders the marketer's efforts.

2. FOCUS ON ONE SITE

One of the most valuable commodities in internet marketing is traffic. Traffic equals rankings. And this, more than anything else, determine a website's placement in the organic listings of the search engines.

Because of this, it is much smarter to have a website independent of any one affiliate program, edit it, adding all affilite links to it, then focus all marketing efforts on THAT page. (Note: this type of simple editing refers only to adding links and brief comments and can be learned in a very short time.)

3. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS

Out of all the choices in marketing, most people find they prefer one or two above the rest. Yet many marketers, in a mis-guided attempt to be as effective as possible, feel they must use EVERY type of marketing. This is when marketing truly becomes work.

NO ONE can fully utilize every possible form of marketing. At least, not on a regular basis. The result of this is a squandering of energy and efforts and an ineffectual marketing campaign.

It is far better (and much more fun) to choose the a few favored marketing types and focus on those.

4. QUALITY LINKS & BEING TRUE TO THEM.

The bottom line of all marketing is links, whether through link exchanges, adding links to various site, article marketing, forum marketing. It ALL boils down to quality links. Whatever the choice of marketing, make sure to create the highest quality links possible.

In reciprocal linking, for instance, only link with partners that have compatible (not competitive) sites and that treat your link respectfully (with direct links from the front page to their links page, etc.) and be sure you do, as well.

In article marketing it is better to write one excellent article a month and promote it everywhere than create 20 "automated" articles a day because no newsletter is going to use them. In forum marketing (which, while many have banned links in sig files, usually still allow a link in a profile), being helpful and courteous and gaining a good reputation still brings in high quality traffic.

The bottom line about links is, if you take the time to place them carefully, they will return your efforts a hundredfold.

5. WORTHWHILE EXCEPTIONS

While I may have cautioned against free services, sometimes it IS worthwhile to take advantage of some free tools. Alexa's tool bar, for instance, offers a ranking meter that can prove invaluable, especially while choosing the types of sites to partner with, in all of the types of links listed above, in point #4. Another good example is Overture's keyword selector tool, which reports the actual requests made for specific (and relative) terms in the last month.

6. MULTI-TASK

This covers a wide range of possibilites: Everything from talking on the telephone while visiting a click-for-credit site, to uploading leads while editing a webpage. The key factor is using your time and energies as effectively as possible, thereby optimizing each effort to its best result.