Marketing Science Blog

The Internet is now a full-blown medium for product and service advertisements.  Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements has ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites being visited by millions of surfers, how can you make sure your ad will be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users?  Here are a few tips.

1.  Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers.  Before doing this, you need to define who your target customers are.  Placing an ad on sites they frequent increases the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.

Also, consider the website’s search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it.  External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site.  This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site.  Check if any of your competitors have ads on the site.

2.  Placing ads on some sites cost some money.  However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site.  This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking.  This is similar to making a statement that your site’s content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3.  Pay per click (PPC) is a good lead generation method in Internet marketing.  You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked.  If you prefer this method of advertising, make sure you’re using services that set limits on daily expenses.  There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor your PPC results.

4.  Choose your domain name wisely.  It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement.  Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5.  Make sure you have useful content on your sites.  While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer’s confidence in your site.  It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines.  So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6.  When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers.  What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site?  Also, use specific keywords or key phrases.  Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7.  Track your ads.  Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC.  There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales.  You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits.  This is absolutely critical.

It will boost p your marketing tremendously if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product features or product specifications.  These things may not mean much to customers, unless they know what the the benefit is (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Getting to the top of search engine results can be difficult since millions of websites exist, many of which are using the same keywords you’re using.

While this is true, this doesn’t mean that your website has to be placed under your competitors’ websites when presenting search engine results.  Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.

By being mindful of these 7 tips, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your strategic Internet marketing goals (translation: You’ll be making more sales & profits!)

Posted by Bob