How to Market your Products Online!
This white paper will explain some of the options regarding online marketing techniques and in simple terms tell you what you need to know before you get started.
Success, right from the start!
If you want to sell your products online then you will need to know how to market them effectively. Promoting your business and products on the Internet can be expensive or require patience and expertise to see results.
It has become increasingly popular to pay for advertising using pay-per-click, but this is not always a viable option for many companies as it can be expensive to buy your way to the top of the listings. It is however possible to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve your chances of reaching more customers.
SEO works by using certain keywords in your website that are relevant to your business and/or products. What SEO does is help you improve your ranking within the natural (free) search listings. The natural listings can be described as the main body of search results on the web. The listings that usually appear at the sides are ‘paid for' results. Around 85% of people will click on a SEO result and only 15% clicking on the paid for ads that appear separately from the other results.
In the past using SEO required expert knowledge of how the Internet works to take advantage of such techniques. As people are getting to grips with Internet based technology, it is becoming easier to manage and perform such tasks by yourself, but it can still be daunting for someone who is unfamiliar with the World Wide Web and of course the competition is increasing so even if you get the SEO right, you wont usually appear at the top of sought after sites such as Google.
Search Engines use complicated search algorithms which make it hard for the regular Internet user to make best of this type of optimisation. A well implemented SEO strategy can however show good results and boost business as recent studies suggest that a large majority of Internet users rely on the first page of search listings to find what they want on the web.
A good example of this is an online magazine store. If this store is within first page of the search results, they could expect a lot of interest. If they appear somewhere after the first 3 pages then a considerable drop in website hits might be experienced.
The composition of your site is imperative to SEO. Using niche words and keywords will aid your chances of improving your ranking but only if used in moderation. Search engines are becoming more advanced and can catch out misuse of tags and keywords to identify those who should and shouldn't be in the top results.
As most people prefer to click on the natural search listings it is often more suitable for a company to spend time tweaking their sites rather than paying out huge sums of money for pay per click. And PPC doesn't always guarantee positive results because of possible scams and automated responses to pay for ads. It has been reported that some companies try to access certain websites in order to build false results making people think that these ads are working when in fact there has been no ‘true' interest. Also the more clicks per ad, the more money it costs the company.
You should be aware that different search engines have different strategies for page ranking, which makes it difficult to manage. Seeking advice is one way to go about this, another is to do some long winded research and try to figure out how to do this by yourself - but its an ongoing / changing thing so you'll need to do this every week.
Of course, there are other ways to market your products online. It is possible to get a promotional agreement with another company where you can advertise your product on their site, either for a fee or an arrangement. Pay for search engine ads is another way to go about this, but be careful of unwanted interest and false results. What might seem like a large number of hits, might not be genuine interest and could be the result of online bots that automatically and routinely access websites to gather information for archiving or other means.
Having a company blog, where you can talk about new projects and plans that you have is a good way to reach a larger community who might be interested in your business. You can also consider RSS feeds that can be used to publish blogs or podcasts. Podcasts are digital audio that can be downloaded from the Internet and resembles radio, only anyone can do it!
You could also consider advertising the old fashioned way by publishing articles in newspapers or magazines, placing ads in certain publications and making sure that your URL is on everything that your print and share outside of your company. The more exposure you have the better chance of reeling in people to your website.
Everything you do is up to you! You need to make an afford to get your name around and try to build up your customer base. The best thing about advertising online is that you don't have to go it alone!
You might want to consider employing the services of someone who has expertise in this area. Having a helping hand can often make life easier, especially when it come to marketing. It is something that needs constant attention and time to find new ways of appealing to your customers.
something4 Ltd can offer you a complete solution to all your ecommerce problems. With plenty of experience S4 can guide you towards success and bring expertise to your company making you more confident and able to grow as a successful business.
