Online marketing
Search engines are very valuable to your business. When someone types a query into a search engine and finds your site, it has given them a non-intrusive way of solving their problem. They may simply be looking for information or they may be wanting to buy. In either case, if you have a product or service to sell, the search engine has brought you a visitor who has made that important first contact themselves.
Online marketing (also known as search engine marketing) should therefore be an important part of your overall marketing strategy. You can gain real benefits from linking it with your advertising in print media and your public relations activities. A new online marketing campaign should extend your current marketing activities, not replace them. In this way, you will protect, develop and strengthen your marketing position.
To promote your web site, include your web site address on:
- stationery and business cards
- fax cover sheets
- answerphone messages
- livery for your company vehicles
To introduce online marketing, you can either use an agency or see what you can achieve yourself. To go it alone, you will need lots of time and commitment. You will also need to learn basic HTML (a language of the Internet) for editing the code behind the site.
Whichever way you choose to go, you should not expect overnight results. It takes time to acquire good rankings – months rather than days or weeks – so you should wait for at least three or four months before making changes. You can use this time to acquire good quality links to your site.
The main areas of online marketing are:
search engine ‘optimisation’ (ranking as high as possible in the free search engine listings)
pay-per-click (acquiring cost effective rankings in paid listings
In this section of the Best Practice Guide, we are assuming that you already know:
- what you are selling
- who you are selling to
- how much people will pay you
