Internet Marketing Strategies

You can have the fanciest website on the Internet, but it's useless unless your customers can find it. There are several tricks for getting your website listed on the search engines. Contact us if you would like a consultation with an internet marketing specialist.

Paid Placement

The quickest and easiest way to get listed on the search engines is to pay for your listing. Most search engines use some sort of paid placement, and several do not list any websites that have not paid for a listing.

MakassarNET is experienced with creating internet marketing campaigns that produce powerful results.

Paid listings are a much quicker way to get your site listed on search engines than any other method. Many search engines will display your paid listing within days, and some will even display it instantaneously.

Most search engines look something like this:

In this example, the paid listings appear above and to the right of the unpaid listings. The listings on the top almost blend in with the unpaid listings, which lends more credibility to the listing and makes it look less like an advertisement.

Paid placement generally works on a pay-per-click basis. You only pay for the number of people who actually click on your listing and visit your website. This is done through a bidding system where you "bid" a price for your listing, and the search engine ranks your website listing depending on how your bid compares to others bidding on the same term. The more you pay, the more visible your listing will be. In the example above, the three listings that appear above the unpaid listings are the three top bidders.

The trick is to pick the right terms. The term "toystore" may have a lot of searches, but it will be expensive to get listed in the top spots. If, however, you select terms such as "jumprope", "board games", "Seattle toystore" and "children's toys and games," then you will probably pay a lower cost per click for those terms, which will bring down your average cost per visitor, allowing room in your budget for a higher number of visitors. When MakassarNET creates a paid placement account for a client, we select several thousand terms that relate to the client's website. This ensures maximum exposure, a high volume of visitors, and a low cost per visitor.

Contact us now to find out more about paid search engine placement programs. We can create your search term list, show you which programs to use, or run your entire internet marketing campaign for you.

Make your website friendly to search engines

Regardless of whether you choose to use paid placement, it is still a good idea to make sure your website is friendly to search engines. If search engines can easily read your website, then they are more likely to put a listing for your site within their free listings.

The problem with relying fully on this method is that search engines can take months or sometimes even years to bump your listing up high enough that anyone will be able to find it. If you type the term "toystore" into Google, you will see that there are over 30,000 listings. Most people don't look past the first page, so if you're not in the top ten you might as well not be listed at all.

This is not to say that you should give up -- just that you should keep it in perspective and make your marketing decisions accordingly. If you are competing against 30,000 other websites, you should take a look at what the top ten are doing, and try to make your website competitive.

Want to know how your website stacks up to the competition? We can analyze your current website to determine what improvements need to be made in order for your site to place higher in the search engines. We can also help you determine what search terms you should target and, if necessary, help you develop a campaign for paid placement in Google and Overture. Contact us today for your website analysis.

Submit your website to directories and related websites

Submitting your website to search engines, directories and related websites can be tedious, but can sometimes pay off. Try to submit your website not only to the major search engines, but also smaller directories.

Actively look for other websites which cater to your target market. If you have an online toystore, look for websites that parents might visit and ask if these sites would be willing to link to your website. Be prepared to have some of them also ask you for a reciprocal link from your site to theirs.

How do you know the best way to market your website?

If you are selling a product that is only worth 50 cents, it doesn't make sense to pay 75 cents for each visitor. That might seem obvious, but how do you know what your break-even point might be?

You should assume that about 2% of the visitors to your website will contact you for more information or possibly make a purchase on your site. If you generally earn $30 per sale, then you cannot spend more than 60 cents per visitor even if you can turn every contact into a sale. However, if you generally earn $300 for each sale, then an aggressive internet marketing campaign could prove to be quite profitable for your business.

Our internet marketing specialists can analyze your website and products to determine the best internet marketing solution for your business. Contact us today.