Online Advertising Techniques That Pay Off For Businesses

Online Advertising Techniques That Pay Off For Businesses

When marketing offline, how can a successful firm expand its reach to the internet world? The good news is that your tried-and-true offline advertising strategies will be as successful as ever in promoting your online presence. On the other hand, promoting a business online means that old methods need to be updated to meet modern standards.

Companies should already have a marketing strategy and goals from their offline efforts, so let's go right to the technological parts of internet promotion. Because of their low or non-existent entry barriers and because later specialized marketing is less likely to succeed in their absence, I usually look at the following first. Obviously, there is a lot more to web marketing than that, enough that it might be its own full-time university degree. If you're just starting out and don't have the funds to hire a professional marketing firm, here is your crash course in getting your site off the ground.

Enhancing the Site's Performance

This is the starting point always, since its completion is frequently crucial to the success of subsequent steps. When I say this, I mean that first-rate content and a user-friendly layout are essential. Make adjustments to your site for search engines only after you have made it user-and intelligence-friendly.

Search engines evaluate a page based on factors like its keyword density and how well it matches a user's query. Naturally, this is grossly oversimplified, but it's a good place to begin. Once your site has been indexed, your results will improve dramatically if you take the time to choose 10–20 key phrases that you want search engines to pick up on and then create specialized pages with relevant material that makes effective use of those terms.

Using specific keyword phrases, such as "precision-engineered bolts," can help your site rank higher than using a broad term like "engineering components." The title, meta tags, and all the words in the body of the page should all have the key phrase, and the density of the phrase should be high in comparison to other terms. Both the page title and the URL, such as "http://www.mysite.com/precision-engineered-bolts/," should ideally include the target keyword. Each page should have a unique title that reflects the keyword phrases used within that page's content.

The best way to build a website today is to use XHTML and CSS. Using tables for layout can lead to technical problems and less keyword density than is recommended.

A content management system (CMS) like the one included at no extra cost with RealmSurfer websites would be ideal since it would allow you to easily and rapidly implement all of the above. With a little experimentation, you'll be able to handle content optimization on your own with this method.

Indexing and Linking

Getting your site indexed by search engines is the next stage. If you want to have your site indexed by Google, for example, you need to have at least one other site link to it. In some cases, it may be a good idea at this point to pay the search engines to index your site faster.

Participating in online communities that are frequented by your ideal clientele might be very helpful at this time. In addition to raising brand recognition in target demographics, this tactic may also increase the number of inbound links to your site, which is an important ranking factor. Make sure there is a link to your site in the post's footer. 

Never use a forum to send unwanted commercial messages or spam other users. This will only hurt your brand's reputation. Forums with dedicated advertising space may be the best place to make a formal pitch for your business's offerings. Keep in mind that your presence should always be seen as an asset to the community. Maintain decorum, contribute meaningfully, and keep the conversation moving forward.

There are several considerations for search engine rankings. For instance, new websites do poorly at first, but after some time online, search engines begin to give them more trust. However, external factors such as the number of inbound (ideally non-reciprocal) connections from other sites, as well as the rating of the referring page and site, and the context and phrasing of the referring link, are more important. The link's prominence inside the site's own organizational structure also matters. A link from news.com.au is considerably more valuable than one from www.somesitesomewhere.com/subdirectory/theattic/someoldforgottenpage.

Establish Strategic Alliances With Prominent Organizations to Promote Your Brand Online

If carried out properly, this is where you will reap the most rewards. When I was in charge of a big company's e-commerce division, we would give high-traffic websites a share of sales rather than pay them for advertising space, which is sometimes quite broad in scope. To put it another way, we gave them the promotional banners and set up basic monitoring to see where our visitors were coming from, and then we gave them a cut of the profits. As a consequence, our marketing budget went a long way, and referring sites began making extra efforts to prioritize us whenever they ran out of money to spend on ads.

Medium-term success may also be achieved by contributing useful material to websites that already cater to your target audience. You get visibility and links, and they get access to relevant material.

Make a Few Tentative Forays Into Sponsored Keyword Advertising

At this stage, and only at this point, should you begin to invest money in web advertising. However, since you can narrow your audience for these advertisements, you will receive a significantly greater return on investment than if you advertised to everyone. Finding the right balance may take some experimentation, but in general, your costs should be lower than the revenue they bring in, and they should also contain thorough, regularly updated statistics and metrics that are accessible online.

I typically recommend using Google as a first stop for this reason. They're the most well-known search engines in the world, have extensive internet reporting, and are likely to provide positive results first. Both Yahoo and MSN have sophisticated sponsored link systems that continue to improve. All three companies' newest products include demographic targeting, which will soon replace cookie-based targeting as the industry standard for reaching consumers online.

Speak With an Online Marketing Expert

You should see results by now, and be in a position to ask pertinent questions. Only do business with a company that has been established for a while and has a strong reputation (ask for customer contact information so you can find out how effective they are). Ask for samples of their reports ahead of time, and make sure they give comprehensive data on the sites they promote your site on, the number of views and clickthroughs they get daily, and the success of each campaign compared to the others. Additionally, they need to schedule a meeting with you once a month to discuss the business's progress, discuss any issues that have arisen, and include you in the next promotional strategy decisions. You need to be able to calculate the cost per sale for different advertising campaigns at least once a month so that you can adjust your strategy properly.

Be especially skeptical of companies that promise impossibly fast results, rely only on search engine submissions, or engage in fraudulent techniques to "trick" search engines into ranking you higher. These provide no value at all, and may even cause search engines to de-list or severely downgrade your site.