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 assist with SEO services but how about the other methods?
The way business works has changed forever. If we go back a short while ago, people still worked on traditional forms to choose their company. 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. If you can’t wait for next day delivery, you do still have the shops. However they aren’t used as much as they 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. Some specialise and deliver in all three areas, but they are few and far between. So what exactly is each marketing method, and what are their advantages and disadvantages.
SEO is the Internet marketer’s holy grail. Simply put, imagine when you type in Google for a product, you are given two sets of results. Sometimes at the top, but mostly at the right, are paid adverts, which we’ll move onto in a bit. Prominantly, in the middle are natural, or organic results. These listings are unpaid and are in a nutshell, what Google deems worthy of being up there! Imagine if you could appear at the top of these 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. First you have onsite optimisation which involves getting the title tags and body content just right, amongst other tweaks you can make. Next there is link building which a good SEO company should be capable with. The art of link building involves encouraging other websites to link to your website. It is very basically, when website X puts a link 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.
If patience and time isn’t on your side, you might consider pay per click advertising. 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. You aren’t able to control what appears with organic results. Pay per click brings instant results- you can be advertising in minutes. It can take months and months to hit even the top ten in Google, and even then you have no guarantees at all. 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 can become incredibly expensive- in many cases you are bidding more than the value of the product. 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. Who doesn’t have an account with the two main social networking sites- Facebook and Twitter? Who was shocked when their parents added them on Facebook? Smart companies use social media to advertise. Social media is a subtle new 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 agency can help here- but you need to be patient.