It is surprising to find so much information on ways to earn extra money on the internet these days. There are numerous blogs about article marketing, affiliate marketing, and niche marketing all over the web. The question, of course, is how much of what is written on this subject reliable?

Undoubtedly, there is plenty of misinformation on the internet, not to mention outright lies coming from quick-buck artists and the like. Which is why so much research and education is needed to become successful.

My previous articles have focused on ideas to earn extra money and SEO optimization to bring in the traffic needed to produce prospective customers on our websites. But now that we have the amount of exposure necessary to create revenue from our sites, what is the next step?

This is where testing becomes vitally important. Rather than just taking someone’s word for a specific technique being suggested online, put it to the test. Certainly, beginners are going to have to rely on the information that they receive from successful internet marketers when first starting-out, but with experience these exercises will become more familiar. That is the time to start testing the techniques that we have learned.

There are complicated methods of testing advertisements called split testing, A/B testing, or bucket testing that were first developed back in the days of direct mail marketing. Basically, one establishes a baseline, an ad’s basic layout for instance, and then tests the ads effectiveness using different variables like colors or product placement to find what produces the best results. This type of testing made a natural progression into email marketing with the advent of the personal computer and the world wide web. Not at all surprisingly, split testing is being used more and more for website landing pages and squeeze pages or sales pages as well.

It is important to remember that testing is only effective if there is enough traffic entering your site to make a distinction between the different variables being tested. So, do not jump-the-gun here. Be sure to optimize your website prior to performing any form of market testing. It would be pointless, if not misleading, to come to any conclusion based upon fluctuations from a handful of visitors to your website.

Many tools are now available at little or no cost to provide valuable marketing information on the internet. If Adsense is your site’s primary or secondary target for monetization, Google offers many helpful tools to test your website’s effectiveness. These tools are absolutely free and can be found in their "Business Solutions."

Another handy tool that I have used many times can be found at statcounter.com. It provides relevant information like page loads and unique or returning visitor counts to help gauge traffic patterns on a particular website. This tool is also free of charge.

Whatever methods of testing a marketer chooses to get the most from his or her campaign is completely up to the individual. The important thing is to use some form of testing to maximize your potential to earn extra money on the internet.