How effective is Internet Marketing?

[geoffo1406]

I would like to know how effective, internet marketing is eg: if you have paid to have a banner on a website, or had your site optimised to appear on the first page of search engine. How has the following worked for you

Banner ads/optimisation = how much more traffic on your website = How much more calls you have recieved and business gained?

i would like to know what your experience has been and if it has been worthwhile.

[danimari]

Constantly hearing about peoples success stories on the internet? Been thinking if the internet could dramatically show you different results? Read the latest article from Kozan about Multilevel Marketing and the net.

Points I cover in this article:

* Multilevel Marketing in the past

* The internet to make money and work from home

* Join the best Multilevel Marketing companies to make massive cash online with Multilevel Marketing

+ Multilevel Marketing in the past

In the past many people who tried Multilevel Marketing failed. This was largely due to the fact that the main way to market the Multilevel Marketing opportunity was through family and friends. You may have been in a small town or even worse a village! What was even worse was that the people you would show the Multilevel Marketing opportunity to would not be a home biz orientated people.

Multilevel Marketing opportunities require a home biz minded person. Multilevel Marketing opportunities require initiative and persistence to be successful with Multilevel Marketing..........read more in http://pubcity.blogspot.com/2008/06/can-...eting.html

[Trixi]

It depends on what kind of site you have. I worked at an agency for years, and I worked with a lot of different companies there. Some products that I've seen perform badly are designer clothing, bank/mortgage sites, products under $20, flowers, products over $2000 (people want to see those in person) and real estate, particularly if you are trying to find buyers.

Products that do well are mainstream products that can be bought anywhere, gift products, marketing data collection, sporting goods, hotels, diet aids, technology, business services.

There is more to online advertising than just Pay Per Click and banner advertising. The most revenue producing products are shopping feeds and affiliate programs. I like commission junction for affiliate sites and Google base (which is FREE), shopzilla, nextag or shopping.com for shopping sites. There are products that will automatically place your feeds into each shopping portal. Check out merchantadvantage.com for a great product that does that. The great thing about affiliate advertising is that you only pay the commission, so you can never lose money (except for the start up fees)

I've had luck with banners, particularly if you are introducing a new product that would work well as an impulse buy. Don't spend more than a few cents per mil, or you will lose money. A safe place to try is Google Image Ads. Make sure that you disable sites like myspace, youtube and facebook, or you will just throw money away. If you look around online, you will probably find a coupon for $50 in free advertising to try out Google or MSN. $50 should be enough for you to run a test and see if it works for your site.

Optimizing can bring you more traffic, but the quality of that traffic will determine your success. You will need to do more than optimize, you will need to make sure that they new keywords you are using are really the best ones to make sales on your site. You will want to make sure that your landing pages include everything the searcher wants to know and that your site is easy to use. People trust sites that look professional, so if your site looks hokey or home made, you should invest in a professional overhaul. That money will come back to you pretty quick.

I left the SEM/SEO agency about a year ago. If you are a big, profitable company, it will be worth the money to go through an agency rather than spend twice as much hiring someone on to do it in house. But if you are a smaller company with some free time or large enough that you can afford a full timer, do that. Anyone can do this. Google tells you how to optimize and helps you with online advertising skills. You will pay an arm and a leg going through an agency, and they're top priority is income, not giving you as many conversions as possible. If you find one who you only have to pay for sales, use them. Good luck finding one though.

You can do it yourself. You just have to be willing to spend some time online working.

**** Don't be sold to here. You are here to ask a question, not to find an SEM SEO company. There are some SHADY SEM/SEOs. SHADY!! Be sure that you investigate whatever company you use toughly. Make sure that they are Google Certified and Yahoo Ambassadors. Make sure that they do everything in Best Practices, and be sure that they don't base their optimization on linking alone. If they guarantee you placement, they are lying. Good luck!

[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.

[RICKY R]

Hi,

I have a lot of experience marketing small companies online (I have 3 companies). One of the best ways is to sign up at business directories and protals. These are basically listings of businesses (simliar to the phone book). The advantage is that these portals usually get a lot of traffic and they're ranked high on Google because of all the quality links they contain.

My favorite portal is called Directory Exclusive. I signed up a few weeks ago because they're giving a away a free business card holder when a person enter's their company info. I received it in the mail 3 days ago =)

I don't know if they still have that promotion, but you can try to get the free card holder here:


http://www.top-internet-directory.info

Good Luck

[MICHEAL E]

Hi,

I have a lot of experience marketing small companies online (I have 3 companies). One of the best ways is to sign up at business directories and protals. These are basically listings of businesses (simliar to the phone book). The advantage is that these portals usually get a lot of traffic and they're ranked high on Google because of all the quality links they contain.

My favorite portal is called Directory Exclusive. I signed up a few weeks ago because they're giving a away a free business card holder when a person enter's their company info. I received it in the mail 3 days ago =)

I don't know if they still have that promotion, but you can try to get the free card holder here:


http://www.first-i-directory.info

Good Luck

[Willie A]

Hi,

There are many ways to market a small business on the web. You can buy banner ads, text links, or use PPC. However, the best way is to get listed in a bunch of portals. Portals and directories are like phone books, and they often provide a lot of traffic because they tend to rank high on Google.

This portal is giving away a free business card holder for lising your business (I got mine a few days ago in the mail). If you want to know about some other portals, just let me know.


http://www.best-i-business-seo-directory.info

Best of Luck

[Christian V]

Hi,

There are many ways to market a small business on the web. You can buy banner ads, text links, or use PPC. However, the best way is to get listed in a bunch of portals. Portals and directories are like phone books, and they often provide a lot of traffic because they tend to rank high on Google.

This portal is giving away a free business card holder for lising your business (I got mine a few days ago in the mail). If you want to know about some other portals, just let me know.


http://www.i-seo-directory.info

Best of Luck

[roarboy39]

It is only effective if you get Real Human Visitors like this site I highly endorse:

http://www.JiffyHits.com can provide 200+ visitors to your site EVERY DAY! FOR 30 DAYS STRAIGHT! 100% GUARANTEED! ALL TRACKABLE! GOOGLE SAFE! ADSENSE SAFE! CPA SAFE! PANDA, PENGUIN & HUMMINGBIRD SAFE! ALL REAL HUMANS!!!!! CHECK OUT OUR SITE AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!
Visit http://www.JiffyHits.com