Any company competing on the web is in for a real challenge. There are billions of websites listed in Google alone. All these websites are competing with yours for clicks. So how do you stand out from the competition and sell your products online? A good SEO company will be able to help with SEO services but what about the other methods
The way business works has changed forever. If we go back just ten years, people still mostly would work on word of mouth or the local phone directory to find a service or product they wanted. Either that or they could simply walk up the high street, and have all the shop fronts to choose from. The Internet has put a stop to traditional buying habits. While the high streets are still open for the shopper that can’t wait for next day delivery, traditional methods of shopping aren’t utilised as much as they once were. Now business have to pick from an SEO company, a social media agency or a company to manage an Adwords campaign.
Internet marketers tend to expertise in one of the three methods. There are internet marketing companies that specialise in all three, but they are few and far between. Let’s have a look at each different method and compare the advantages and disadvantages.
Search engine optimisation is the holy grail of the internet marketer. You are presented with two separate lists of results when you search on Google. Sometimes at the top, but mostly at the right, are paid adverts, which we’ll move onto in a bit. Organic results appear in the middle. These listings are unpaid and are in a nutshell, what Google deems worthy of being up there! Now imagine if you could impress Google enough that you could get on the first page of those results. Better still, what if you could get in the top three, or even take the top position. This is where an SEO company comes in. There are a number of different methods to SEO. Onsite optimisation includes getting the titles and headers right. Secondly a good SEO company will be very good at link building. The art of link building involves encouraging other websites to link to your website. It is in a nutshell, when website X links to you. What about the disadvantages with SEO? But what about the disadvantages involved with SEO marketing? It is hard to find fault, as if you find the right SEO company, you can reap the rewards. However one downside if the unpredictability of Google. A method that once worked, can stop working. However a good SEO company will always be up to date with the latest and best methods.
PPC is worth considering if you haven’t the time or patience for SEO. You can bid to be listed on the right hand side with pay per click. The great advantage of this, is you can to an extent control exactly what content appears. So your title and body text can sell your product and entice the user to click through. With organic results you can’t control what appears. Pay per click brings instant results- you can be advertising in minutes. Search engine optimisation takes months to get top rankings, and even then you have no guarantees. The pay per click model allows you to turbo your way to the top with no waiting around. Although arguable a good Adwords management company will be able to optimise your campaign in such away, you will save their fees and more. However Adwords really is for the big boys and you can end up bidding for more than the product is worth if you aren’t careful. A good SEO company will cost a lot less in the long run.
You have probably heard of social media, and if you haven’t come across Facebook you cannot read the papers or watch the news!If you use the Internet regularly, or even just watch the TV, you have to have come across social media. Just about everyone has an account with Facebook or Twitter. Who has been amazed to find their grandparents adding them on Facebook? Smart companies use social media to advertise. Social media is a new, more subtle way of getting your brand noticed. With social media the worse thing a company can do is constantly post offers and try and push their product or service. Social media is all about creating fans, who in turn ‘tweet’ about or ‘like’ your company and tell their friends. A good social media company can definitely help you with this form of advertising, but do be aware it is very different to traditional forms.