Internet Advertising

We are all familiar with newspapers, magazines, coupons, and billboards. Let us examine how the trend of direct mail and print advertising is taking an ever-increasing back seat to online advertising.In order to reach a specific customer, you would select a particular type of print mail advertising. For example, if you wanted to target someone driving home everyday, you would pay for an expensive billboard campaign. This is a costly type of advertising, but how many customers does it reach? Do you survey customers when they walk into your business and see if they got off the exit based on the billboard ad? If you did not ask the customer how they found you, then how do you know if you should continue to pay for that pricey billboard investment?Everyone knows the coupon clipper. So where would you advertise to get their attention? Of course, the Sunday paper, and perhaps you might even consider the back of grocery store receipts. Coupon clippers are everywhere, and there are many direct print advertising companies who can provide you with various services. Have you ever purchased something from a Val Pak coupon, or a coupon from a post card you received in the mail? Most likely, yes.Then we have magazines. If you are looking to reach customers who might be interested in workout machines, the possibilities for your print and direct mail advertising is endless. Do you have a local, national, or global customer audience for which you would like to sell your products?Your choices would be the local newspaper in the health and fitness section, or large ads in the proper placement in certain sections of the newspaper. You could also advertise in national magazines to reach customers in the United States, or even a global magazine, to reach customers all over the world. You could place classified, banner, or article ads in Muscle and Fitness, or even Maxim.What does offline advertising have to do with online advertising? Everything.The mentality for the majority of business owners is still stuck in the print mail era. More and more business owners are losing customers locally, nationally, and globally, because they believe their potential customers find them through direct mail, offline advertising methods. They spend more and more on these efforts, and eventually go out of business. They will forever be puzzled as to why all of their efforts did not prove to be financially fruitful.In the year 2007, over 70% of the United States alone uses the Internet to find local, national, and global products or services. If you try explaining this to local business owners, they look at you like you are actually lying and only trying to make a buck from them!This is no joke. I have a local web site and spent $75,000 building and marketing it just for our community. Business owners are losing customers, so I walked door-to-door in over 105 degree heat to let them know their customers are actually looking for them online and almost every business owner completely blew me off!I offered the most inexpensive web site advertising with an amazing, highly targeted customer audience, and practically no one wanted to advertise online. Honestly, I was disgusted with these business owners, because my efforts and financial investment were enormous. I cannot get that time back, but my education was invaluable. I am very happy this venture took place.One thing I have learned over the years in working with clients and potential business clients is that as soon as I hear they are waffling about paying for Internet web sites, SEO, AdWords, and hundreds of hours of my valuable time and expert marketing efforts, I let them go–quite easily.There is no hard selling anything. After I explain the facts to business owners, they either get it, or they do not. And you move on to an owner who gets it, and is willing to pay you for your expensive education, time, hard work, and honest, ethical marketing skill sets put into their online advertising.So what are your online advertising options? I am glad you asked.Let us look at some of the many ways you can advertise online, and then let us look at whether or not these ways are actually paying off for business owners.Without looking at the YES, NO, or POSSIBLY categories toward the bottom, see how well you would fair in using online advertising to get more customers.Which would you choose?- Web Site (basic, no SEO)- web site (flash with moving images, pictures, and AdSense, no SEO)- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, but no online, content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density, and AdSense advertising)- video advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- banner advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- image advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- text ads throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- link exchange directories- FFA (free for all) directory submissions- article writing content submitted to relevant categories on reputable directories- search engine submission of your web site to thousands of directories- coupon web sites- putting your web site link on a friends’ site, or anyone else you ask who will put a link to your web site on theirsAs you can see, the list above is not all-inclusive, but it gives you the major online advertising venues in which you may or may not be able to get traffic for your business.I will break this list down with a summary of which you should use, should not use, or might use (if you use them correctly)Yes – Definitely!- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density, and AdSense advertising)- article writing content submitted to relevant categories on reputable directories (but be very careful here!)No – Absolutely Not!- Web Site (basic, no SEO whatsoever)- web site (flash with moving images, pictures, and AdSense, no SEO whatsoever)- FFA (free for all) directory submissions- putting your web site link on a friends’ site, or anyone else you ask who will put a link to your web site on theirs (no, no, no!)- search engine submission of your web site to thousands of directories (new technology and algorithm changes, know what you are doing before you submit anywhere!) This is in the NO and POSSIBLY category because you can hurt your efforts if you do this wrong.Possibly – Using these correctly could be rewarding, but using them incorrectly could cost you every penny you have and still not get you any customers- web site (with proper title; header tages; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, but no online, content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)- video advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- banner advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- image advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- text ads throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)- search engine submission of your web site to thousands of directories (new technology and algorithm changes, know what you are doing before you submit anywhere!) This is in the NO and POSSIBLY category because you can hurt your efforts if you do this wrong.- coupon web sitesHow did you do? Which type of online advertising would you have chosen?As you can see, the choices are mind boggling, and all of your options have not been listed. These are your meat and potato, primary online advertising choices.Building a web site takes knowledge, education, and experience. SEO (search engine optimization) is critical to your business, just as print advertising once was 10 years ago.Using Google AdWords pay per click services are an increasingly effective way to get targeted traffic to your web site within 15 minutes after your ad goes live. But beware of companies and individuals who set you up with a campaign that will bleed you dry financially. Get a PPC Expert who can show you their client’s successful results and compare their prices and offer to other pay per click services.