Anyone that has had a website designed is looking for the website to attract visitors. In the same way that someone that owns a shop wants to have people come in website owners all want to get visitors to their websites.
There are two ways to get visitors to your website:
- PPC Pay Per Click
- SEO (search engine optimisation)
Other than advertising on TV these are really the only two ways that website owners can get visitors to their website. There are pros and cons for both which we will have a quick look at:
PPC Pro's
Pay Per Click Marketing is a very targeted way of getting precisely the right visitors to your website. No matter what anyone types into a search engine, you can draw them to your website by second guessing what they may type into a search engine. This is a relatively cheap way of getting the right visitors to your website. It costs anything from £1 up to around £30 per click (depending on the competitive nature of the word you are targeting).
PPC can be up and running within minutes. You can set up a very basic campaign in an hour or two (less if you want) to start getting traffic to your website.
PPC can be paused or turned off if you are busy, or want to close the site for a season (holidays etc.)
PPC Con's
Pay Per Click Marketing is very competitive. If you are a website designer and are sponsoring a key phrase 'website design' then you will attract visitors that have typed in 'website design jobs' or '10 website design people that have worked in the USA' - so you need to spend time setting up something called 'negative keywords' so as to only get certain searches coming up. The search engines have millions of searches going on every day, so you need to ensure that you only appear when you want.
PPC is worldwide so if you just want to target visitors from certain countries, then you need to use the settings.
PPC can attract your competitors, students, general browsers as well as customers. Just because you have set up all your settings, so your adverts only appear in the country of choice, at certain times of the day for certain specific phrases - you may still attract non customers. This is unavoidable and will cost you around 50% of what you are spending.
If your 'keywords' (the phrases you want to target) are very competitive, they will be expensive; so being very specific is key. Remember that even being specific, you will still attract non clients.
Just because the right visitors visit your website, does not mean they will contact you. Visitors may not like the design of your website, the colours, the load speed, the first 2 words they read etc. so your cost per enquiry is going up each time a visitor comes and does not stay.
Pay per click marketing can be very successful and many companies rely on this as their only source of new business; however getting the balance right is key. If you do not set your parameters right, then it could be a big cash burner.
SEO Pro's
This will give you free traffic and visitors. A well optimised website will be available 24/7 and people will come and (should) place enquiries that will not cost you at all.
Search engine optimisation only gets better and better. Once you are at the top, you can keep building in order to get more and more visitors. Like a skyscraper you can keep going up but are not affected by building regulations, the stability of the bedrock in the same way a skyscraper is - you can just keep going. Keep adding new pages, new content, testimonials, new links and new resources making your website stand out as the pinnacle of your market.
Your website becomes a valuable asset that people want to copy of buy.
SEO Con's
SEO takes time. Everyone that has a website (which stretches into the billions) is gunning for the same position as you. Building up your reputation with search engines can take months or even years. Search engines like to see slow and steady growth, so build too fast and you may get penalised.
SEO is never finished. When you are at the top of the search engines for your seach phrases and keywords you may be inclined to sit back and relax. However all your competitors are wanting to knock you off the top, so within a few days of weeks, you may find your site has been gasumped by a competitor (or worse still) or by a company that is nothing really to do with your market.
Marketing on the internet is a tricky business and there are certain rules that need to be followed. Once the rules are being followed, it is then a case of hard work in order to get to where it is that you want to be. Internet Marketing companies can help you get to where you need to go. The internet has been established now since the 70's giving 3 decades for the mistakes to be made, for wrinkles to be ironed out and for specialists to come and go.
There are good points and bad points to both SEO and PPC - however the best combination would be a successful website that is high up on the search engine listings backed up by a cost effective PPC campaign that is well targeted and profitable.
Internet marketing is not easy, it is an arms race and all other businesses that have a website are involved in the race; however talking to a professional may just give you ideas on how to get yourself more visitors for less or for free.