Online Marketing
In
today's environment, a quality web site is your single most
important marketing tool
Online
or web marketing has changed the face of marketing more than any other
development in decades. Now a quality web site is not merely an
addendum to marketing activities - it is arguably your single most
important marketing tool. A well-designed site with the right content
and promotion brings your products within reach of not just the city or
country you operate in – but it opens a 24/7 gateway to the
entire world.
A quality website allows you to provide access to your business to
customers anywhere. It gives them immediate reference to your products
and services and what your company stands for. It can tell people about
your business philosophies, it can profile your key people and provide
an immediate source of contact through e-mail.
Increasingly, businesses are using the web not just as an Online
'corporate brochure' or a products or services
'showroom' but also as a means of conducting actual
Online transactions. Now anyone anywhere can buy anything from
anywhere at anytime – all at a click of a mouse.
This has changed the entire mindset in which we previously conducted
business and smart operators are tapping into markets that were
hitherto unthinkable.
So where do you start? The first thing to decide is what you want your web site to do? Is it
to inform prospects about your products or services to generate sales
enquiries? Is it to create databases for sales leads? Is it to
facilitate sales transactions through the Internet? When you have the answers to these questions you can start designing
your web site. This usually means briefing an experienced web designer
with a comprehensive brief that details the desired content and
functionality of the site.
Remember your site is a reflection of your business. That's
why it pays to get a professional designer to put it together. An
unimpressive amateur site can actually create a poor image for your
business and turn people away. Let us say you now have a quality site that accurately reflects your
company and has all the functions required to meet the objectives you
have set
But imagine opening a storefront and no one came through the doors. The
same principle applies if you published a web site, which no one logged
on to. Posting your site to the web is not the end of the project but
merely the beginning to phase two – promoting the site to
your target markets. A web site is useless no matter how brilliant it is if it is lost in
cyberspace. Just like all other promotional tools, your site needs to be constantly
promoted, updated and brought to your prospects attention.
Steps you can take to promote your web site.
- Include your URL in all your
stationery, such as business cards and letterheads. Also make sure it
is prominently featured in your sales materials advertising and
signage.
- Include your URL in your e-mail signatures.
- Offer to exchange links with web sites with related interests.
- Visit all the major search engine
sites and submit the URL of your web address to each one. Most search
engines have a 'submit URL facility' or a similar option.
- The more quality content in your site the more it will be picked up and listed in search engines. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has become the most sought after specialised skill in attracting visitors to companies' web sites. The technique is based on understanding how search algorithms work.
The broad basis is optimising a site's coding presentation and structure and avoiding impediments that might keep search engine-indexing programs from fully detecting a site. It might also involve having unique content on pages that can be easily indexed and extracted by search engines. Since search engine optimisation can require making changes to the source code of a site it is beneficial to incorporate this in the initial development and design to make the site ‘search engine friendly'.
Because of the specialised skills involved in SEO it makes sense to engage the services of professionals to do it for you.
- Pay per click advertising is a good way to target people searching for your keywords in your site. Pay per click advertising is advertising in selected search engines. Consumer use of search engines to discover information on products, find local businesses and buy from vendors has never been greater.
All major search
engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN provide pay-per-click (PPC)
listings, enabling businesses a unique online marketing opportunity.
You can easily place limits on spend levels and specify the country or
countries in which you want the advertisements to appear. As there are
strict limits on the number of characters you can include in an ad it
is important to carefully research what the key 'ad words'
are for your site to minimise wastage and to maximise the number of
clicks your advertisement receives.
The more you undertake to pay per click the higher your ad will be placed in the search engine results pages.
If properly done PPC
advertising, provides one of the clearest return on investment analyses
possible from any form of advertising bar none. By individually
tracking the effectiveness of each keyword and time of day, as well as
the effectiveness of individual creative copy, you will quickly be able
to turn PPC search engine advertising into a potent marketing tool.
Search engine
advertising represents the most important form of online marketing
today. Being immediately and directly responsive to a specific enquiry
is the most powerful way to attract prime prospects. Little wonder that
search engine advertising is the fastest-growing advertising medium and
search engines' advertising revenue is sharply increasing!
Unique content in a site is an important part of SEO
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