With the value of online advertising set to overtake TV within the next 2 years, your online presence is even more vital ever. Here are 10 ways in which you can employ some simple tactics to reap the benefits of increasing online activity, without breaking the bank.
1. Get the basics right
The design, content and coding of your website are fundamental to your e-marketing programme. Relevant keywords should be included in the site’s meta tags, headings, and copy; all tags on images and title text on hyperlinks. These cost nothing but can really help search engines find your site.
Keeping your website up to date pays dividends too. Dynamic content can also mean visitors come back, as having something new each time a visitor comes to your site is the best way to get repeat visits. It goes without saying that your web address needs to be on every brochure, email footer, poster or any other document that leaves the building!
2. Register in the open directory for FREE
The open directory (www.dmoz.org) is one of the main sources that Google uses to manage listings. DMOZ is also used extensively by other search engines and since it’s free, you have nothing to lose! Take care when registering your site within a category. If you are one of thousands of companies, then the likelihood is that you won’t get into the all-important top three listings. Most users will not look further than the first three.
3. Search Engine Optimisation
Pay-per-click – there are prizes for third place.
Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on search engines where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit their website. Advertisers bid on relevant keywords users will use as search terms, paying to appear at a certain position, based on the popularity of that term. So, to be guaranteed a first place listing, will cost you more than lower rankings. Given that listings within the top 3 will be seen by most users, spreading your keywords across positions 1, 2 and 3 can help you make the most of your budget.
Google AdWords – we quite like it.
AdWords is Google’s flagship advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google’s text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines.
4. Affiliate marketing – your virtual team
This involves offering “affiliates” – other website owners – a banner, hyperlinked with special coding, to your online shop. The coding routes the traffic through an “affiliate network” who measure conversions from hits, to sales. When a sale is made, a commission is then payable to the Affiliate. Where pay-per-click will get you traffic, this route means you only pay for the sales you make – after the event. However, if you integrate your pay per click search engine optimization with your affiliate programme, you can then track all keywords by popularity all the way through to sales.
5. Email marketing – beware the SPAM filter
Email is a far more cost-effective way of keeping in touch with your customers than a direct mail campaign. It can also be an effective tool for businesses that sell large quantities of low-value items. There are many different packages available, which track how many people open, read or delete and how many buy from your site.
6. Facebook – the next frontier?
Social networking via Facebook is growing faster than the longer established MySpace site with
28.5m visitors in February this year. Many brands are already successfully using these sites – fashion retailer Primark has seen a huge increase in internet traffic from the Primark Appreciation Society, which discusses everything from store opening times to the latest bargains. The amount of people leaving Facebook to go to a retail site has doubled since last year and this medium will become
Increasingly important as marketers embrace it.
7. eBay – the cheapest online store around
There are millions of retailers who also link items for auction back to their web site and online shop on
eBay, which offers a great method of market entry for the e-commerce novice. It is even possible to never even have to carry stock, simply placing the order with a retailer and getting them to deliver
the goods when the auction is won.
8. Viral marketing
Viral marketing induces web users to pass on marketing messages to other users, creating potentially
exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect. Hotmail promotes its service and its own advertisers’ messages in every user’s e-mail notes. Many FMCG brand managers have used
this effectively and we have all seen the funny videos that are circulated to everyone in the office, which quickly create a buzz.
9. Blogging
Blogging is now hugely popular and a great way to offer fresh content for users each time they come back to your site. It can offer you a means to demonstrate expertise and to interact with your target audience, as well as reaching new ones.
10. Media relations
A newspaper or magazine article, even in the lowest-circulation local or trade title, is almost guaranteed to impact favourably on your levels of web traffic, especially if it indicates your web address. We have found, from the PR activity we undertake for our clients, that web traffic will surge, usually the day following an article appearing in print. Your web stats are a great way to track the results that this brings and give you enough statistical info to offer you worthwhile market data.