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The internet is an extremely effective way to make money and to save money in advertising. For example take a company that deals in gold and silver as well as other precious metals. The company developed a very low cost system by which you can get real time quotes of gold, platinum, and silver prices updated every ten seconds.
This type of web site serves a dual purpose:
- They are able to see exactly who was on their web site, and
- Register those visitors as potential customers
Those customers, or people who are browsing that site, are always one click away from learning everything there is to know about the company. From an advertising standpoint, this type of advertising is extremely inexpensive.
By comparison, consider the cost of a couple of advertising pages in a large monthly publication, for the same cost of building essentially an online trading system, it brings a company real value and cost effectiveness. It is not just throwing up an ad that says "We trade in gold, silver, and other precious metals", but instead your website is a medium which provides real information.
The sites that are successful and prosper are those that are interactive, and provide real and valuable information.
Online Promotion and Advertising
Search Engines and Directories
To promote your site on-line, you will list your site in all the major search engines and directories. This way, for anyone on the internet, any where in the world, when they do a "key word" search and type in key words that deal with your product, service or business, your page will pop up in a list of related pages.
If you have created value by offering free articles on your site, valuable information or free objects, you can list each one of these pages individually in every search engine.
How much does it cost to get all this valuable worldwide exposure? How much do search engines charge? Nothing for most of them. Look for the ones that are free!
Complementary Links
Another way you'll promote your site online is through complementary links. You do a search for sites that are related to yours. Complementary businesses, products, service or information. Then you send them an e-mail offering to create a link from your site to theirs, if they create a link from their site to yours. This is a truly powerful concept. If you get connected to a network of sites that generate decent traffic, the traffic on your site can grow exponentially.
Online Communities and Discussion Groups
You can also use Newsgroups, electronic mailing lists, and even chat rooms to inexpensively promote your site online. Find some that are composed of your target market, and spend some time reading the postings or listening to the conversations if they are Chatrooms. Then, when you have some relevant and useful information to contribute, add your thoughts to the group. You should always post your messages with a signature file attached. Signature files are short, concise lines added to the end of any communications you send that identify you and your company. Using a signature line that is brief and informative is considered an acceptable form of advertising, as long as your contribution is relevant to the group's topics.
Online Advertising
It is also important to advertise your site online. The main difference between promoting your site online and advertising your site online, is that it's free to promote your site, while advertising obviously costs money.
Where do you advertise online? There are new ways to advertise electronically being invented every month. Here are a few of the basics.
- Banner advertising - This is an ad that goes horizontally across a web page, usually about 1 inch tall, (hence the name banner) and has a very brief statement, some kind of graphic and the invitation to "Click Here". If your prospect clicks on the ad, there is a link that instantly brings them to your site where they can get more information. Any site that generates a lot of traffic can sell banner advertising.
- Purchasing key words in search engines - You can purchase key words in a search engine and every time someone does a search using that key word, your banner ad will pop up inviting them to "Click Here" and visit your site. Electronic advertising can be very sophisticated. You can buy any key words, even the names of your competitors and their products. When someone types in that key word, your ad pops up on the screen.
- Sponsorships - You can pay a website a sponsorship fee and in exchange, they will put a small ad on their site saying, this site sponsored by, and your name. Think of all the sites out there that attract your target customer. Why not sponsor those sites. And of course if the prospect clicks on the ad, now they are at your site. You can also place ads in electronic malls and of course commercial online services such as American Online, and Microsoft Network.
Offline Promotion and Advertising
There is a rule of thumb...always promote your on-line presence off-line.
Use existing media
Think of all the places you can announce your web address:
- Business Cards
- Existing advertisements in other media
- Yellow pages ads
- Print
- Direct Mail
- Radio
- TV
- Outgoing telephone messages
- fax machine
- Your newsletter or mailing list of existing customers
- Invoices
- Anytime you mention your business, you can announce your web address
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