Online advertising is increasingly important to small businesses.
The trouble is, traditional methods are often given priority, even though digital methods have emerged that are often more cost-effective.
When you consider the large number of competing websites, you realise how difficult it is to attract visitors.
Many new businesses make the mistake of trying to reach as many people as possible to maximise visitor numbers. But going for sheer volume along isn’t the way to success.
Once you have a good idea of who your potential customers are, you need to consider their habits online and how best to reach them
If your business is attracting huge numbers of people, but sales aren't reflecting this, then your online advertising is clearly targeting the wrong people. Internet advertising and promotion is about reaching people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and this requires a clear understanding of who your customers are.
Once you have a good idea of who your potential customers are, you need to consider their habits online and how best to reach them. In most cases it will be preferable to use a variety of digital and online media and advertising methods.
When you think of advertising your business online, which methods immediately spring to mind?
Banner ads
If it's banner advertisements, then welcome to the 90s. Banner adverts do have an influence, and are still successful, but with most modern browsers including ad blocking software, the days of pop-up adverts and flashy banners is limited.
I've used banner adverts myself, yet have add-ons installed in my browser which, by default, switch off adverts and banners from major advertising networks, and this way of surfing the internet is adopted by an increasing number of people. Even flash banners and advertisements' can be blocked.
So what are the most successful methods of online advertising? Firstly, consider what the biggest and most important resource is when it comes to the internet.
Would you consider this to be the cables, wires, computers and servers that comprise the hardware? Or would you be thinking of software, utilities, search engines and other virtual commodities?
In fact, if you thought of either of these things, you'd not only be wrong, but also overlooking the critical way you can help maximise your online business promotion strategies. The truth is that the greatest resource that the internet has to offer is the millions of people using it each and every day.
Ultimately it’s users who decide what succeeds and what doesn't, what gets shared and promoted, and what gets blocked, banned or buried on page 497 of Google's search results. So, as far as your online advertising is concerned, reach people, entertain them, interest or attract them and you’re more likely to succeed.
But isn't that what traditional advertising is about? Again, if you're thinking of traditional billboards and magazine adverts, these rarely work when taken into the virtual world.
External links
Remember, Google's search results will be important in promoting your site, but the rank it achieves is based on its popularity as much as search-engine optimisation; how many people are visiting your site and how many people are linking to it?
External links from social networking sites, forums, bulletin boards, discussion boards and blogs are pivotal in getting major search engines to see your site as relevant and interesting.
For this reason, your online advertising is likely to be more effective if managed through back-links and optimised posts in blogs, social networking sites and forums than by paying large sums of money for flashy banner adverts on an assortment of tenuously related websites, many of which will never be seen anyway because of the prevalent software designed to remove them from your potential customers' screens.
