How effective is Internet Marketing?

[haddassa222]

The answer depends on whether you want to do it yourself or hire someone. If you hire someone, it depends on whether they are certified & trained - or they are just playing at internet marketing to make a few bucks.

I must admit to start that we are an SEM (internet marketing or eMarketing) company. So take my advice with a grain of salt.

The advantage we have is that we have the software needed to manually submit to search engines and social networking sites. eMarketing is about forcing the search engines to keep looking at your website.

There is no one fix. Anyone who says, 'pay me $2000 and you'll be at the top' is only giving you a 1/2 truth. Yes, they can get you to the top for a few months.

Paying an SEM (like http://www.fetch50k.com) a monthly fee will keep you up there permanently.

How? This is the hardest part for most people to understand. They think that SEM is all about adding some code to your website, or buying traffic.

We maintain a network of websites/blogs/forums that generate 71 million page loads a year. Each of these are highly optimizes, highly promoted, and have great code. When we put your ad, article, link on these sites, you 'inherit' the benefits of our sites.

DIY

Yes you can DIY. Two of the best places to learn are:

http://wealthy-writer.com
This website has 2 lists of places to generate SEM value. Of course, you'll need to post at least 20 web pages (not your home page) to these sites, weekly, if you want to get the same quality of service that you can buy monthly for $150 - $500.

http://divanetworking.blogspot.com
This blog has a yahoo group where members constantly help each other eMarket their companies. Each member works for 30 min - 1 hour a month on their tema member's blogs/websites. In return they get about 7 hours worth of benefits.

The difference is drastic. An Internet Marketing company that hires CERTIFIED SEO SEM can have traffic coming to your website within 1 - 3 weeks, get you a PR or 3/4 within weeks, and have your website hit the top of google searches within less than 2 months.

You can do the same, but it will take you at least 30 - 50 hours work.

Part 2 of your Question:

no, banners do not work.

Yes, our network has more than 200 pages at the top of Google searches on a daily basis. Optimization depends on your needs. Our $400 service guarantees 20k visitors a month. BUT - can you sell them? Will you lose them by making mistaks?

I know some businesses that get less than 5000 visitors a month and have a conversion rate of 5%. I know others who have a conversion rate of .005% and get more than 100 000 visitors. (all organic for both these cases)

Yes, it is worth while. In fact, it is so worth while that newspapers are starting to crumble because so many people are shopping online. ( Check out this panel discussion with people from NYT, NYP, Vanity Fair, etc http://madisontomain.com/2008/06/future-...-answers/)

Make sure you work with an SEM firm who focuses on small business. You may do better advertising on shopping comparison sites than Google's PayPerClick program. Or, you may do better in Social Networking sites than using banner advertising. It all depends on the product you are selling.

We do find that impulse purchases sell better on the web. Products that take time to think about, are high end do not.

It also depends on the shopping cart. One of the biggest mistakes is forcing people to fill out a form full of personal information before they are allowed to buy. A poor navigation system can also cost sales. People prefer to have no more than 3 clicks between the product and the final check out.

Hope this will give you some ideas.