I recently went to the movies, and they were showing slides
prior to the movie advertising various businesses. One of
the slides was an advertisement to advertise on the slide
show. It said simply, "without advertising something bad
happens .... nothing!" Having coached people in business
for many years, I'm often astounded at the fact that so few
people budget anything substantial for advertising and
marketing. The focus is always on fixtures, furnishings,
inventory and such, and by the time that's all done, there
just isn't anything left for advertising. But the business
owner rationalizes this by thinking that they have such a
beautiful store, such wonderful products or services, such
great staff that people will somehow just know about their
store and will want to shop there.
This is even more true for people who have virtual
businesses on the internet. They put their money into a
wonderful website, and then they just expect people will
find them and buy their products or services. Recent
estimates are that there are almost 30 billion websites on
the internet today. Consequently, the odds of anyone
finding your site just by putting it on the internet are
about the same as finding intelligent life on Mars. So, in
order to get visitors to your site, and more importantly,
to buy your product or service, you have to find a way to
get their attention. Once visitors make it to your site,
your job still isn't done. You have to turn them into
customers. Very few of your visitors will purchase from
you on their first visit. So the real catch is to get them
to come back. In order to do this, you need to get them to
give you their contact information to add to your list.
Once you have a list, then you can contact your visitors
and here is where you really have the opportunity to turn
them into customers. We'll talk in future articles about
how to build visitors into customers, but today, let's
focus on getting them to visit your site for the first time.
Currently, people who advise business owners on increasing
traffic tend to focus on five key areas. In future
articles, we'll hone in on each of these areas in great
detail. Here is an overview of the four key areas.
1. Search Engine Optimization. The first and most basic
tool to get people to notice your site is what is known as
search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO is the art of
making your website receive good ranking on the search
engines. So, when people use Google or Yahoo or MSN or any
of the other search engines, your website is in a high
ranking. The general rule here is that if you can get in
the top 5 or 10 websites listed on a search engine search,
you'll get a good percentage of the people searching that
term to click on your link. There are a great number of
tasks involved in search engine ranking, and you don't have
to be an expert at HTML or web development to get a good
ranking. In future articles, we'll discuss some of the
basics of SEO. In the meantime, if you would like to have
some links to resources to teach yourself SEO, write me or
visit my website.
2. Marketing Co-ops. Over the last few years, a number of
marketing co-ops have come into existence. Like any other
co-op, the idea is that a large number of people combine
resources to purchase goods at a discount. The good
marketing co-ops will get you a piece of the marketing
action for less that it would cost you to do all of the
marketing, and the co-op directors do a great deal of the
work for you. Keep in mind that all co-ops are not the
same. Some are much much better than others. Do some
research before you buy.
3. Pay Per Click (PPC) services. Even with great search
engine optimization, it's tough to get noticed above the
crowd, particularly if you are marketing a product or
service that there are lots of other people trying to sell
along with you. All of the major search engines have PPC
services in which you can purchase advertising on their
website, and you pay when someone clicks on your link.
Most allow you to budget how much you'll spend per month,
and to bid on clicks, which means the more you're willing
to pay, the higher placement the ad will get. PPC
services, while criticized by many, when done properly can
be the best of all marketing. Paying 50 cents or a dollar
for a click might be expensive, but you have to calculate
that in terms of what the profit will be for purchases from
your site. Much like SEO the art of picking proper key
words, picking proper search engines and budgeting properly
is an art, but one that can be learned.
4. Traditional advertising (non-internet). Don't overlook
the possibility of using more traditional advertising
methods to get visitors. As expensive as PPC can be,
advertising in newspapers, magazines, direct mail, radio,
and other forms of more traditional advertising can have a
big pay offs. 5. Paying for visitors. There are services
that promises to send visitors to your site. Many of these
are coupled with advertising co-ops. Many of these, while
they live up to their promises of sending visitors to your
site, often send untargeted visitors, and result in very
low conversion to customers. This isn't true of all
programs, but you must be very careful.
However you plan to market your products or services, you
must be systematic and skilled. Plan to put a great deal
of your first year's budget toward advertising just as
though you were starting a brick and mortar business.
Internet businesses are no different than any other kind of
business. Without advertising something bad happens for
business people ....nothing.
----------------------------------------------------
Mark Albertson is a nationally known business coach,
author, speaker and business attorney. Mark is also a radio
personality in the Seattle area, hosting KVI talk radio's
"Minding Your Business" show. Mark coaches people
interested in starting business as well as established
entrepreneurs. For Three FREE Ebooks on internet success,
more articles and an informative blog click here ==>
http://www.u2b-rich.com <==
No comments:
Post a Comment