Internet Marketing

 

Is having a website enough to expose you to new clients?

If you are interested in improving your internet presence, attracting new clients, promoting your brand, and marketing your products and service, just having a website will not do the job.

Having a website can expose you to new clients, but first you have to be found.

What is the value of having a website if it cannot be found [during a search of the internet] when a prospective client searches the internet for your products or services?

Promoting your website requires the skillful blending of marketing techniques; social media; site and layout design; relevant content; and keyword development, targeting and placement, to create or revamp a site in a way that its audience will find easy, engaging, informative and an overall good experience, while achieving strong search engine presence.

Yes! It requires an investment of both money and time, but consider the realities of today's marketing challenges:*

• 61% of global Internet users research products online. (Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)
• 44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine. (Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)
• Worldwide, we conduct 131 billion searches per month on the web. (Comscore, January 2010)
• 57% of TV viewers use the web simultaneously. (Nielson, 2009)
• 70% of the links search users click-on are organic, not paid. (Marketing Sherpa, February 2007)
• 60% of all organic clicks go to the top three organic search results. (MarketingSherpa, February 2007)
• 33% of all organic click-throughs go to the number 1 position on page 1. (Chitka Insights, June 2013)
• 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. (MarketShareHitsLink.com, October 2010)
• The average click-through rate for paid search in 2010 (worldwide) was 2%. (Convario, January 2011)
• Businesses with websites of 51 to 100 pages generate 48% more leads than those with 1 to 50 pages. (HubSpot)

The advent of the internet, and the ubiquity of Smartphones and iPads, has brought about the demise of the traditional information and advertising resources available to consumers including the White Page and the Yellow Page advertising directories.

In today's world, there are few opportunities to promote your brand that are not internet related.

Traditional (old age) marketing through referrals (in-person word of mouth), mailers, Yellow Page ads and listings, newspapers and other printed materials, has been replaced by Social Media (on-line word of mouth), E-mails, electronic newsletters, and blogging, etc.

The good and the bad of this paradigm shift:

1. The internet allows any business, especially a small to medium-size business, to cost effectively expand their market reach outside of their immediate geographic boundaries.
2. The internet allows any business to penetrate into your local business area.
3. Good client experience reviews and referrals are available to a broader audience and have a longer shelf life, as are "bad" client experience reviews, but in many cases these "review-sites" do provide the business owner an opportunity to rebut, explain or make good on the error.

*Sourced from HubSpot: "All of the Marketing Statics You Need."