Small Business Internet Marketing Local Business Advertising Online How to start small business internet marketing and local business advertising online is a question that many small and medium sized businesses are pondering as more and more consumers disregard Yellow Pages books and other forms of traditional print media and move online to find what they are looking for.
The Internet is dramatically changing the way we do business and all the major companies are dominating online advertising leaving small and medium sized businesses in dire need of an Internet advertising solution for connecting and interacting with local consumers who are moving online in record numbers.
Many businesses who have created an online presence for themselves are quickly realizing that a pretty looking website does not equate to being found among the millions of websites online. Add to that the cost of dealing with designers and developers, and many businesses have no hope of competing in today’s Internet savvy communities.
One effective way is to utilize some of the many article and press release directories available online to announce your arrival into the online community. Providing concise informative information is the key here. It is not about flogging off your business products but about providing solutions to consumer problems.
Think about what solution your product or service can provide and write an article about that, not about your product, but what solution it can provide. Save the product details for the author’s resources box.
Another way small and medium businesses are trying to compete is through pay-per-click (PPC) programs like Google Adwords. Unfortunately most of the high target keywords and search terms have been become highly competitive and are generally cornered by major companies with large advertising budgets. And, to add fuel to the fire, there are now real concerns about click fraud.
Is Click Fraud and PPC Advertising a Problem?
According to Click Forensics, the overall industry average click fraud rate was 17.1% in the 4th quarter of 2008, up from 16.0% in the 3rd quarter of 2008. The problem, which is not new, is companies get paid based on how many times users click on online ads. Fraudsters develop computer programs that simulate user clicks to drive up traffic, and artificially inflating revenue. -Source: Peak Solutions/SEO Since 1999
What this means is if you and I are real estate agents and I find out you are advertising on a pay-per-click search engine, I will get up at 6am and start clicking on your ad until I use up your daily budget to stop the ad from appearing on the search engine for the rest of the day to improve the promotion of my ad on the same search engine.
What About Organic Search Optimization?
The most effective form of search engine marketing is organic search engine optimization or SEO as it is more commonly known. Internet keyword search studies confirm that keyword searchers prefer the organic search listings 6 to 1 to the pay-per-click sponsored ads found at the top of the pages above or to the side the organic searches. But SEO is a whole other story.
What About Geo-Targeted Advertising?
However, new small business Internet marketing technologies and strategies are opening the way for small and medium sized businesses to succeed in their business advertising online and compete in this lucrative online marketplace. One of these strategies’ is geo-targeted advertising which is driving online shoppers back into local stores and into using local business services.
It works by identifying the online shopper, gamer or surfer’s IP address and pushing out advertisements for local businesses onto those websites. These ads can be seen popping up everywhere from major search engine pages and gaming sites to the ever popular social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and other high traffic sites like eBay.
So it’s not surprising that local has become one of the hottest words in advertising. Attracted by the enormous growth opportunities, everyone, including the world’s largest technology, search and media companies, is gravitating toward local business advertising.
Smart business operators are laser-targeting their advertising campaigns by selecting zip/postcodes suited to their business needs. This means their ads only show up on websites when and where potential customers from their designated areas are online.
When the consumer clicks on an ad they are directed to, in many cases, a mini-website complete with text links, images, videos, discount coupons, and even interactive driving instructions. Never before have small and medium sized business owners had such real time control of their online branding features combined with a powerful local advertising presence.
To top this off, many sites are providing these small business internet marketing ads with no hosting, design or set-up fees and, no contracts terms. Is this the online solution small and medium sized businesses have been looking for to accelerate their business advertising online?
Couple this with effective business opportunity lead generator and prospecting systems and video response marketing solutions and you have the complete small business internet marketing package.
