Maintaining a serious online presence is the hallmark of a successful business. Although there are many ways to spend your marketing budget, excellent web design, SEO, and paid advertisements are among the most fruitful marketing methods.
Website Design or Redesign
Having the right web design is one of the most important ways to reach your desired audience and persuade them to purchase your product or service. The first step is to conceptualize your audience. Until you understand your audience, you cannot build a website that suits them. Next, focus on the ease of navigation throughout your site. You also need a website that loads quickly because people who have trouble loading your site are likely to leave and try a different site. A great website is also pleasing to the eye yet simple to maintain. By putting aside money for professional web design, you are investing in the online success of your business.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is one of the most crucial methods of marketing. In the modern business world, new customers are extremely unlikely to find you unless you show up as a high-ranking Internet search result. Thus, the best practice of SEO is to sit down with a notepad and jot down every search term that may be relevant to your products or services. For example, an auto mechanic in Little Rock could be found under “Little Rock mechanic,” “alternator repair Little Rock,” and similar queries. The next step is to use certain key phrases in your web content. Do not be obvious in your SEO. Instead, make it blend smoothly into the natural flow of your content. This will get you to the top of the search results without having to pay for advertising.
Online Ad Campaigns
Of course, paid advertising has its place, but it should be in addition to a functioning SEO plan. You should set aside plenty of funds in your marketing budget for pay-per-click (PPC) ads. These are the paid advertisements that show up at the top of search engine results in a separate area. You can also advertise through direct contact with other members of your industry, but never advertise on a competitor’s site. Another good practice is to advertise through companies that target the same audience as you do. Social networking makes it easier than ever before to target a specific audience because you can use their data to reach out to a preferred demographic. Paid advertising is a great way to fill in where SEO can’t reach people.
By implementing these tried and true methods of web marketing, you can prepare your website for your target audience and then get more traffic. By opting for SEO and online ad campaigns, your traffic will consist of people who are looking for you as well as those who are not looking for you. Although this may seem costly in the short term, these marketing practices are an investment worth making.
Are you interested in putting together a 2013 internet marketing budget? If so, let Scale help. Call us now, 303-683-7229, or shoot us an email! We would love to help you get better results from your internet marketing efforts.
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