For the small business, there are a number of cost-effective ways to market your business on the internet. The most important step is identifying your market. Promoting your business over the internet is not "free" ... there will be a cost associated with internet marekting, as a combination of time or money. As with any advertising, it is more effective to reach out to a target market, rather than taking a shotgun approach trying to get your message to millions of internet users. SEARCH ENGINES | PAY-PER-CLICK MARKETING | NETWORKING | eBAY | E-COMMERCE
Over 80% of internet users use search engines to find information. When designing and marketing your site, it is important to know that search engines users are in "seek" mode, and you have a very short opportunity to convince them that your site provides what they're looking for. Success with search engines starts with good design and offering content relevant to your market. Through the years, there have been dozens of "tricks" to achieve higher search engine ranking (and thus more visitors to your site, increasing your sales), but in each case the major search engines have compensated for, and sometimes even penalized for, using theser "tricks". The phrase "content is king" is the only search engine strategy that has held true since day one ... offer content that is relevant to the search, and you'll rank well. "Well" is a relative term when we talk about search engine ranking. Everyone would love to be on the first page of search results, but with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of sites competing for those 10 or 20 spots, there's no guarantee you'll reach such a lofty ranking. Reaching those rankings often takes a lot of research, effort, and time to achieve ... again, this "free" search engine traffic will require an investment of time and/or money! One way to reduce your investment is to set your sites lower, to a more focused audience. If your client base is centered on your geographic location, there's little benefit to competing for position for a prospect 3,000 miles away. Be sure to include keywords relevant to your location to rank higher with searchers in your region. The algorithms used by major search engines are closely guarded secrets, and are constnatly being updated and modified. A first-page ranking today may be a 10th-page ranking tomorrow, so your efforts at search engine optimization (SEO) will be ongoing. Some search engines factor in how many other sites link to your site, on the assumpiton that a lot of links indicate that your site contains useful information. This fact was abused by SEO consultants trying to achieve higher rankings for their clients by creating hundreds of sites containing nothing but links to their client sites. As a result, search engines now consider the relevance of pages linking to yours, and will even penalize you for links from certain sites (again, these "tricks" work against the integrity of the search results, and sites "spamming" search engines with these trick may be penalized by being dropped altogether). There is a new, open-source search engine under development called MozDex. Where the algorithms of most search engines are secret, MozDex will show why top-ranked sites achieved their position. The open-source concept of integrity through transparency that has worked for operating systems and software, has now come to search engines!
PPC is a fast way to generate traffic to your website. In most instances, you "bid" on search terms, ranging from $.10 to as high as $1.00 per click to your site. For instance, one client's site uses Overture to generate traffic for an e-commerce site. During a two-week period, their paid listing was displayed in search results 60,604 times, and a total of 671 people clicked on the link and visited their site. The average cost per click was $.10 (based on their bid), for a total cost of $68.72. The important thing to remember is that they're only paying for visitors who searched for a keyword relevant to their site (one that they had bid on), and decided to visit the site based on the listing description. In this case, 2.2% of people viewing the listing clicked on it, which is more cost effective than paying for cost-per-impression banner ads. By tracking and analysis these satistics, the client can track the conversion ratio on their website, and thus calculate the cost of acquisition for each new client. In this case, their conversion rate is about 2%, giving them a cost-per-sale of around $5. The key to success with PPC is not over-bidding. This client could easily triple or quadruple the traffic coming to their site by bidding for a higher position in the search results (the top three results receive many, many times the number of visitors than the rest of the listed websites). Instead of appearing 4th or 5th by bidding $.10 per click, they could appear in the #2 position for $.20 per click. It's only $.10, right? Wrong. The cost per click is not important if you're judging the profitability of the site. It was have an effect on the amount of traffic, but the cost per conversion is key. With a gross margin of $12 per sale, at $.10 per click the can net $7. But at $.20 per click, they only net $2 per sale, and at $.25 per click they lose on each sale, despite dramatic increases in traffic. "Sure, they lose money on each sale, but they make up for it in volume!" Our favorite is Overture, which supplies results to Yahoo, AOL, and MSN searches. Click here to receive a $10 credit when you join Overture
or, Click here to receive a $50 discount off the Google is the most popular search engine, though the sites served by Overture are close behind. Instead of offering paid listing in the search results, Google offers "AdWords", small test ads down the right side of the page. The response and conversions rates will differ, but can be easily tracked and managed to insure your PPC marketing effort is profitable. Kanoodle is a smaller search engine, meaning you won't receive as many visitors, but there is less competition for cost-per-click. There are numerous other pay-per-click search engines, but be careful not to place a large deposit on a search engine that will generate very little traffic, or set minimum bids too high to be profitable (Mamma.com and Yahoo! Site Match are examples where you have no control over your cost per click).
Scott Stratten, a marketing consultant and busines coach in Oakville, Ontario promotes the concept of "Un-Marketing", using low-cost techniques to "pull and stay", instead of traditional "push and stay" invasive marketing techniques. The foundation of online networking and "Un-Marketing" is to build relationships and offer value, instead of bombarding your prospects with repeated sales pitches. Your can sign up for one of Scott's free newsletter at Un-Marketing.com Scott also maintains a very active community on Ryze, which can be found by clicking here. Ryze is a terrific networking community for entrepreneurs. If you decide to join Ryze for free, be sure to pay a visit to Russ' Ryze page!
More and more companies are discovering eBay as a way to promote their products. Once the domain of collectibles, second-hand goods, and clearout specials, eBay's community gives manufacturers and retailers access to millions of consumers looking to find a bargain and spend money ...now! While you won't get full retail price for your items, many products can still be sold profitably on eBay, while generating awareness for your business and traffic to your primary website if done correctly. You can sign up for a free account at eBay here. If you want to reach the US market, then we suggest signing up through the main eBay.com site throug the link provided. You'll still be able to choose whether to list your items on eBay.com or eBay.ca, but your fees will be in US$, likely the same currency as your auction (and thus your payment). Russ has helped clients successfully sell hundreds of items on eBay, so be sure to contact him if you'd like to discuss the oportunities eBay may offer your business.
One challenge for merchants selling on the internet, is accepting secure online payments. In addition to security concerns, many Canadian banks have very strict guidelines for being able to process internet sales throguh a merchant account. Using a payment gateway will solve both these problems. PayPal is the easiest, and one of the most cost-effective e-payment services. Purchased last year by eBay, PayPal offers a free shopping cart service, support for multiple currencies, buyer and seller protection, and does all this with no sign-up fee, no monthly fee, and a fee around 3%. Funds are deposited in a PayPal account, which can be withdrawn to a Canadian or U.S. bank account (a small fee of $.50 for withdrawals may apply, and PayPal's currency exchange rate may cost another couple of points). For Canadian merchants, visitors to your site are still required to sign up for a free PayPal account, and refunds issued by you would be applied to their PayPal account, not back to their credit card. For U.S.-based merchants, PayPal has eliminated the need for consumers to sign up, and this hopefully this option will be extended to Canadian merchants soon. The PayPal sign up process will cause a certain number of customers to not complete the sale process. Payment gateways such as 2Checkout allow you to accept credit card payments just as if you had your own merchant account, though the fees will be high. 2CO typically has a sign-up fee around US$49, and a transaction fee around 5%.
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