Affordable Advertising: Best Deals Are Online
In hard times, businesses often cut back on the lifeblood of what gets new customers: advertising. But when times are tough you should be ramping up -- rather than decreasing -- your advertising.
While a full page spread in The New York Times may be out of the question, most businesses can afford Web site advertising -- usually cheaper and more targeted to your audience than print ads. And many Web sites, in this tough economy, may be willing to cut you a deal.
Here are some lean-time Web advertising strategies that will keep your business front and center of your potential customers without breaking the bank:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Before you purchase online advertising, make sure your business's Web site has the right key words to help the major search engines -- Google, Bing and Yahoo! -- find it easily. Improving your company's Web site search rankings is one of the best forms of free advertising.
Not sure if your pages are search engine optimized correctly? One free and easy way to find out is to visit Google Adword's keyword tool. Type in the URL of a page on your web site in the space provided. You'll see a list of key words associated with that page. Check the list to see if these key words are actually associated with your page and if you need to add other key words that are more popular.
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
You can do everything to make your site SEO-friendly, but it still may not rank on the first page of a keyword search for natural searches. The next step is to buy your way up to the top with pay-per-click advertising.
PPC advertisers bid for keywords. The winner of these bids gets the top spot in relevant content and searches on the web.
There are three main players in this pay-per-click arena: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft:
While there is fierce competition for top keywords, there is also room for small businesses to compete with the big boys. An account for PPC can start for a little as $5; and bids usually start at 5 to 10 cents per click. Even paying a penny or two above another advertiser can move your listing to the top. You can set a cap on how much you are willing to pay per month; your credit card is charged for clicks until you hit the cap and then the advertising will stop until the following month.
Local online ads
If you do business locally you still can benefit from online advertisement through sites such as City Search or Yelp. While these sites have free listings and reviews, they also provide paid advertising packages that bring your listing to the top and provide other benefits such a banner ads and videos.
Targeted web sites
If you find a content Web site (such as a blog or ezine) that is perfectly geared for your product and service -- and has a good search engine rank -- approach the publisher and make an offer to purchase an annual banner or text ad. You can usually cut a deal with these individual publishers and get a good yearly rate for a substantial ad on a home page.
Online advertising networks
These networks fine tune advertising that it reaches precisely the right target audience. This is a boon to small business owners since these networks buy advertising space in bulk -- so are sold at low rates to businesses. There are many of these networks popping up; here are just a few:
The beauty of online advertising is that it is not only affordable, but trackable (unlike print ads). Set up a budget and try a few of these online advertising strategies to see what works best for your business and gives you the best ROI.