Internet Marketing Promoting The Small Business
September 27, 2008 by Select Affiliates
Filed under Advertising and Marketing, Blog
The bare minimum for any small business is internet presence via a website.A well presented website shows what the business can offer, easily loads and is easily navigable. The colors on the website should be easy on the eyes, and does not interfere with the text on the page. The aim is to inform the internet user about the business and what it offers.The web site will not only sell the business but also itself, making the interested surfer to keep coming back to the page.
A website address should also be easy to remember, as well as easy to find.There are many original ways to name a web site, but it still should sound similar to the business name.Finding the web site from scratch needs sound search engine optimization.
Depending on the services or merchandise being offered, a shopping cart may or may not be added to the site.E-commerce payment options would include postal money orders, credit card, checks or bank transfers. For these, there are third-party plug-ins from the internet.
When a buyer searches the internet for a product, he uses a search engine like Google or Yahoo! Search engine optimization is a process where the website is developed and prepared in order to have good web-site search results.
A more interactive internet marketing tool is a blog. A blog (short for “web log”) gives the blogger and small business owner a promotional venue for products and services.It would also prove the small business owner’s technical knowledge on the business. Or be a marketing tool describing the latest specials or promotional offers.
PPC search engine internet marketing (ppc=pay per click) is a very favorable form of advertising for small and large businesses wanting to advertise online.It is very cost-effective and you can test your marketing advertisements out for little money.
Podcasting is a relatively small niche which the small business owner can avail of. However, not all businesses are a good fit for podcasting. A travel agency, a flower shop, or a bookstore podcast would entice the listeners to availing of the services the business offers.A podcast on a certain topic could help market technical consultant services.
An affiliate network is a more advanced form of marketing tool for a small business. An affiliate network gives the small business a relatively quick way of expanding reach and acquiring website traffic. In it’s simplest form, affiliate network is a form of commission based selling.The affiliate earns by either sending internet user (also known as “traffic”) to the business web site.There are numerous forms of commission-based schemes based on page views, clicks and actual sales.
Another advantage of this tool is that the business owner does not have to manage the affiliates, aside from writing commission checks.The affiliates sign up on their own to place the banners and ads on their website/blog. There are third-party sites which do the tracking for affiliate networks which cater to specific products and services.
However, there are so many affiliate programs on the Net today, affiliates are getting very choosy when deciding on the best affiliate programs to join in order to receive the best commission available.
It would then be up to the affiliate to promote and advertise the small business’ services/products. One popular method is affiliate article marketing which is really taking off at the moment.This is where affiliate marketers write and distribute their articles to help promote and advertise products.
Although the tools and methods for internet marketing may have different degrees of technical capability required, these tools are available.The small business person can choose which tool is fitting for his business in terms of reach, target market and internet presence. The small business owner is not limited to the immediate community and dependent on traditional methods of reaching out to the market.
PPC Advertising and PPC Platforms
September 19, 2008 by Select Affiliates
Filed under Advertising and Marketing, Blog
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is becoming an essential marketing tool for any business that uses the Internet to drive sales. With PPC, the traffic that you receive can be extremely targeted depending on your choice of keywords. The major PPC platforms that you should familiarize yourself with are Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter. There is a learning curve associated with each one but if you master them all, it can be financially rewarding.
As with any business decision, once you decide to utilize PPC you should have a solid strategy in place. Before you start spending a single advertising dollar, you should set up metrics to gauge the success of your advertising campaign. Do your homework and find out what your break even point should be. Knowing this number will help you determine what will be an acceptable cost per conversion or cost per click.
Suppose for a moment that you make $50 per sale. You have to first assume what your conversion rate is to find out what the cost per conversion will be. Suppose that your traffic converts at 2%, so every 100 visitors will result in 2 sales. That means that you can afford to pay up to $100 or $1 per click for 100 clicks to reach your break even point. Estimating the conversion rate will help you decide how much you can afford to bid per click.
The better you know your target demographic, the more you will save on PPC advertising costs. Therefore, it is imperative for you to do your market research. If you know that your customers are mostly from the United States and they are shopping online during certain hours of the day, targeting the right countries and turning off your campaigns during certain times of the day may save you a lot of money.
Be sure to test and track to see how your ads are performing. Always split test your ads. Keep the better performing ad and write a new ad to try to beat that one. Incremental improvements in the click-through ratio (CTR) can help you improve your ad position while preserving your cost per click. In the long run, continual improvements in your ads can help you beat your competition. You should also invest time into researching keywords related to your market and keeping up with the trends associated with your product.
In order to manage your traffic campaigns more efficiently, you have to plan well and set up your ad groups properly. When you are doing your keyword research, try to group related keywords into separate ad groups. Then write different ads for each group. The more targeted your ads are, the better their quality score. A high quality score will help you lower your bids.
These are just a few suggestions to get you started. There are plenty of resources out there to help you learn PPC. Be sure to set aside a budget for educating yourself. There is a steep learning curve for PPC and you have to be prepared to lose some money in the beginning. However, once you master the techniques, you can drive targeted traffic to any website on demand.
