It’s a crowded place out there on the world wide web. Almost every legitimate business has a web site up and running. Some web sites are excellent, many are awful. What they have in common is that the businesses behind these web sites are all hoping to reach you online. The majority of these web sites will never reach their intended audience.
How then in 2009, does a business become one of these fortunate few web sites? There are two ways, primarily. I recommend both.
1. Earn it.
2. Pay for it.
Your web site can earn this exposure by being one of the best.
Check List: (good luck, for it’s hard to have all of these)
Best Content
Best Domain
Best Usability
Best Design
Best Company
AND/OR
You can pay your way to the top using advertising. The cheapest web site advertising available to most businesses is Google Adwords.
It’s simple:
You tell Google you would like to show up on the first page for “milwaukee hair salon” when someone keys it into the search box at Google.com. Google will then tell you, “here is how much it’s going to cost you”. For pretend, let’s say Google tells you it will cost $1.00/click to show up some where on the first page of listings. What Google does not tell you is that you will probably not show up on the first page all the time. Instead, Google will use a budget your comfortable with and try to show your advertisement as much as possible. Once your signed up with Google’s program, you can list all of the keywords you would like to show up for in a Campaign (Category) and Ad Group (Sub Category).
Google will display a 3 line advertisement in the very top row or side column of the Google search results page (sponsored links) when someone searches on one of your chosen keywords.
If someone clicks on your advertisement, they will land on your web site. Google will charge you what you agreed to bid for that click. Once you’ve reached your daily budget through clicks, your ads will no longer show.
Benefits to Google Adwords over traditional advertising:
1. No contract
2. No minimum spend
3. Extremely targeted (you pay only to advertise to users that are looking for your product or service)
Unless you’re in an extremely niche industry, Google Adwords may be a requirement to see the web site performance you’re hoping for. No web site will ever show up in the first Google listing for every desired keyword so paying Google helps fill in the gaps. That said, if you’re in a niche industry, using Google Adwords can be a very aggressive form of advertising and will probably show huge ROI at any spend level.
