|
1. Set up a pay per click advertising campaign, such as Google
Adwords
2. Optimise your website for keywords (also known as Search Engine
Optimisation)
Keywords
Before you
embark on either of these marketing methods, you need to understand
about keywords.
Keywords or key phrases are the words that visitors type into a
search engine to find a service or product. The best keywords are
those that are commonly typed in by your potential customers, but
which aren’t used much on your competitor’s websites.
In other words, if you optimize your pages for keywords your
potential customers use a lot, but your competitors haven't thought
of, you win.
But here's the catch...you'll never get to know which are the best
keywords for your website simply by guessing.
There are many tools you can use to find what keywords people are
using. One is called Overture and it is a free service. It shows
you how many times people have searched for a particular term during
a one month period.
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
This does not, however show you how many competing websites there
are for that particular keyword.
If
you are serious about finding the perfect keywords, I would
recommend using a tool called Wordtracker –
www.wordtracker.com. Although you do need to pay a few dollars
for this service, it is far more sophisticated and gives you much
more information than Overture.
Through a series of simple steps, Wordtracker identifies the best
keywords to use on each page of your website.
Wordtracker's suggestions are based on over 300 million keywords and
phrases that people have used over the previous 90 days. (In other
words, there is no "guessing" when you use Wordtracker. Everything
is based on the keywords millions of people have actually typed into
search engines.)
Best of all, their competitive analysis tool enables you to find
those "best keywords" - the ones your potential customers use, but
which your competitors don't know about.
Once you have identified the best keywords, you can either run a pay
per click marketing campaign or optimize your website for search
engines.
Pay
per click
Pay per click advertising is when an advertiser (you) pays for each
qualified click that sends a search engine user to your web page.
PPC requires you to bid on keywords or phrases that relate to your
business. The best known pay per click services are Google AdWords
and Overture.
Generally you can bid from as little as a few cents per visitor.
However, the more you bid the higher up in the search engine your
advertisement will appear. Pay per click is a great way to deliver
targeted and qualified visitors to your website at a very reasonable
price.
It
is a good idea to experiment with different PPC search engines to
find the one that works best for you. In addition, you will need to
spend time testing your keywords and ads.
There are hundreds of pay per click search engines. For more
information check out:
Google Adwords -
https://adwords.google.com
Yahoo -
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/
Pay
per click search engines -
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/
If this is all too hard, you can employ the services of a company
such as Sponsored Linx
www.sponsoredlinx.com.au and they will organise the campaign for
you. In fact, they promise that they can
get you on the 1st page of Google when someone searches for your
company's keywords within 24hrs.
If you mention the following promotional code, you will receive a
5% discount.
web4business868
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engines prefer to list sites that contain good content. In
order to rank high you need to create a website that has maximum
content and which uses lots of relevant keywords to your service
and products. Remember to find out what keywords your customers may
be searching on go to:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ OR
http://www.wordtracker.com
Once you decide on the keywords, use them in
(a) Your website’s domain name
(b) The title of your page - This is displayed in the top bar of
your browser window
(c) The heading of your home page
(d) The first paragraph of your home page
(e) Meta tags - Keywords, page title, description
(f) Titles of your graphics
(g) Alternative (Alt) tags - These appear in place of images when
the browser preferences are set for text only.
Whilst it is important to use keywords as much as possible, it is
also important you use them only if they are relevant and do not
sound awkward. If you spam your keywords you may be penalised or
even banned by some search engines.
Another important thing to consider when trying to optimize your
website for search engines is to have as many relevant links
pointing back to your website from other complementary sites. This
can be done through link exchanges or by writing articles/posts and
submitting them to article directories or forums. Ensure you
include your domain name at the end of each article/post.
If
this all seems too overwhelming, you can employ the services of a
Search engine optimization company, who will make your website’s
content more search engine friendly. In fact, I highly recommend if
you decide that Search Engine Marketing is one of the main ways you
wish to promote your website, you do hire an expert.
One company which I recommend to my clients is
CrankIt. The contact there is Peter Clayton and you can reach him
on 1300 859 600 or via email
peter.clayton@crankit.com.au.
If you quote a special promotional code: web4business868, you will
get a 5% discount.
Please
remember, having your website listed at the top of the search
engines is not the only way to promote your website. There are lots
of other ways you can get visitors to your site for little or no
money. You may wish to read my article: “30 ways to promote your
website on a shoestring budget”
http://www.web4business.com.au/ArticlesIK30waystopromote.htm
|
