Next Generation Advertising for Online Business
By Jared Lansky | December 15, 2007
Author: Jeff Curley
In the universe which we call the internet, Google is the undisputed King. That is great news for those of us who own Google stock. (It is still one of the best growth companies in the technology field.)
Google really does understand business. Google helped small business flourish over the past decade, and the success of small business helped Google get to where it is today. Google Adwords and Adsense make it easy for an online business of any size to either place ads, or get paid to host ads. These two Google services have helped drive the incredible growth of online business. There is no doubt that Google will continue to deliver such innovative services going forward. Certainly, any company which generates a positive return on investment from using Google should continue to partner with Google.
For a growing number of online businesses, however, the power of Google is no longer good news. This may sounds shocking, but it is a natural progression. Why? The overwhelming competition between online businesses bidding for Google services has driven the cost of doing business up. For many now, advertising with Google is not profitable. There is ample evidence of this.
So, how can a small online business address the advertising conundrum, and compete for customers? Those in the Search Optimization Engine field can offer advice on how to lower your cost or improve your results, and this advice could improve the results for some small online businesses. Let us therefore assume that you have already pursued this direction and are still not profitable using Google. Then it is time to focus more attention on new strategies.
What are these new strategies? Here are some which are gaining traction:
1) YouTube: Yes, this funky home-video broadcasting site may sound like a silly place to promote your online business. Do not underestimate it. First, YouTube gets a huge volume of traffic everyday. Second, video is better than printed words at conveying a memorable effect on the visitor. Third, the viral effect (the phenomena of spreading/sharing of a message between peers) is one of these reasons for the success of YouTube. Lastly, it’s FREE.
2) Banner or classified ads on limited reach, targeted websites, magazines, newspapers: the key word here is limited reach. Google reaches everyone, which is the reason for the increasing cost (and dilution) of your message. By reducing your focus on limited reach but highly-targeted forms of media (both online and offline), you may succeed in reducing cost and increasing results. You will naturally need to do research to learn which types of sites, magazines, and newspapers are read by your target customers.
3) Participation in online forum: more and more buyers are eschewing advertising as a source of credible information, in favor of FREE information found in online communities, user forum, blogs and other independent sources. While not all of this forums are credible and/or independent, many do play an important role in disseminating the overwhelming amount of information available online. By participating in forum read by your target audience, and adding value, you can begin to develop a name and reputation for yourself which can spread over to your business.
4) Authoring and publishing articles related to your online business domain: there are a growing number of web sites which allow anyone to upload and publish articles on almost anything, for FREE. At the end of each article, there is a section allowed for the author’s details. By including some details about your business, and adding the website for your business (both of which are permitted), the article transforms into an advertorial for your business. But it does not stop there. There is an added benefit of getting articles published online. Search engines, like Google and Yahoo, search for websites which are relevant to the keywords entered. But that is not all. The search engines then churn out results based on how important each relevant website is. A major factor is determining relevance is the quantity and quality of third party web pages linking to the resulting websites. If your site lacks links from other pages on the net, your online business will not appear at the top of the search results. So, creating these so-called “back links” is an asset to your business’ main web site. Articles are one of the easiest ways to create back links.
These are but a few strategies for reducing your reliance on Google Advertising for your online business. At this point, it is important to note that any strategy or tactic taken, which brings increased traffic to your website, will have a silver lining. As you site gets more traffic, it does not go unnoticed by Google. Two things may happen.
First, your increased traffic will result in a higher “page rank” by Google. (Google is constantly updating it’s rankings of all registered web sites.) When your page rank goes up, your web site will begin to appear nearer to the top of the search results! The other outcome which you may see is a lower cost for advertising (Adwords) with Google. Google respects the fact that your site is generating more traffic; in return, your cost per click for advertising will reduce. In sum, if you own or plan to start a small online business, it is important to consider an integrated marketing strategy. Complete reliance on Google (and other search engines) to build market awareness may not be a prudent approach. Seek out alternative tactics for reaching your target customer, and you will put your online business back under your control.
Ad BuySell Jared Lansky Jared LasnkyTopics: Ad BuySell, Jared Lasnky | Comments Off
Advantages of Online Classified Ads
By Jared Lansky | December 15, 2007
Author: Chris Chun
Classified can be defined as a special type of advertisement. Classifieds generally feature
some personal information, business information by any company, or the information about any upcoming event. The classified Ads were generally used to publish only in newspaper in past. After that the classified ads were stared to advertise through television or radio. Later the Internet became the medium of publishing classified advertisements.
Now the online aspect of classified advertising is highly praised around the entire globe. This is because of some important advantages like the global nature of Internet, availability of more space to write advertisements properly, better keyword based search option and the user friendliness of the classified websites.
In this article we will discuss some facts about the superiority of online classified advertisements over the printed media classified advertisement. First of all the printed media for classified ads includes likes of newspaper, magazines or the free-ad magazines. If you think rationally then you can find a severe drawback of the classified ads, which are generally published in the daily newspapers. Basically the common people don’t have the tendency to read the daily newspaper after its publication date.
So if the classified ad is published in a daily newspaper, then there is every chance that the prospect of that classified advertisement gets rotten after the day of the newspaper publication. Secondly, a particular newspaper is not a global media. The stretch of the availability location of a newspaper is either state level or at most national level. The reader, who has different mother tongue in multilingual countries, does not read even the newspapers of other regional language. So there is every possibility that a large mass got unaware of the published classified ad. But the stretch of Internet is global. Internet users can view the ads of even different countries and the can do what they wish.
For an example, an Indian guy can apply for the job in Hawaii after seeing the online classified ad. Certainly it will not be possible for him to find that particular job in Hawaii, despite being sat in India. Another superiority of online classifieds over the printed media classified ads is the low cost nature of the online classifieds. There are lots of free websites, which provide the facility of posting classified ads free of cost.
You may post as many classified ads of you wish absolutely free. There also some paid classified websites with better moderation quality, which provide you the facility of posting your own classified ads in exchange of some money. But the cost of publishing classified ad in a print media seems to be greater. There you have to pay in cost per column basis. So the expanse rises. The online classified websites also providing more space to write the ad and the fonts are bigger and more readable in websites than the print media.
The downfall of the classified section of print media started after the introduction of television and radio. After the introduction of Internet it seems the classified websites are becoming the front-runner in the field of classified advertisements.
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