How is everyone advertiseing there business online?

emmax

Hi, im looking to advertise my business online, what are the best methods? and cheapest? who would everyone reccommend?

emmax

emmax wrote: »

Hi, im looking to advertise my business online, what are the best methods? and cheapest? who would everyone reccommend?

Depends on the business and your goals really.

Google "Internet Marketing" and learn about what it is you're trying to do.

emmax

is there any good websites i can advertise on? for cheap?

What sort of advertising ?

Are you talking about banner displays ? Text ad's on the content network ?

Learn more about what it is you want to do. Here's a good general start to explain the concepts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing

Are you looking to increase sales ? Or increase brand awareness ?

Think about what it is you want to achieve.

emmax

im lookin for something lik a business directory. so that people will see my contact details, and a bit about the business. thanks for the link! il have a browse around the net i think n see can i find any such websites i want one that is well known.. if anyone has any ideas let me know thanks!!:)

ponderprincess

Hey, my friend has been using a website called mytown.ie for advertising. It gives you a little information about the town your based in and a bit about your business. As far as i'm aware it is reasonable enough but should check it out and see if its what your after.

emmax

ya i just looked at it there, it is a very good website has loads of companies advertiseing on it, and the listing said its only €50 + vat for the year which is very cheap and it lets you advertise in 3 different towns! think i will look in to it further! has anyone used mytown.ie before? does anyone have anymore info on mytown.ie?

RoadKillTs

ya i just looked at it there, it is a very good website has loads of companies advertiseing on it, and the listing said its only €50 + vat for the year which is very cheap and it lets you advertise in 3 different towns! think i will look in to it further! has anyone used mytown.ie before? does anyone have anymore info on mytown.ie?

SPAM is getting more advanced these days

bigjohnny80

Ask then how many page views you could expect for that

emmax

spam? what?:mad: No im just lookin for different ways to advertise online?? does anyone have anyother ideas and il check them out aswel? i was thinking also of the golden pages online but i dont know??

Have you googled internet marketing yet or are you just looking for outdated boring online business directories such as Golden (10 years ago) Pages ?

RoadKillTs

spam? what? No im just lookin for different ways to advertise online?? does anyone have anyother ideas and il check them out aswel? i was thinking also of the golden pages online but i dont know??

Sorry OP. Im just a bit cynicial at times .

But seriously those directory sites like mytown.ie are a waste of time. The internet is saturated with them.
Think about it OP if you were looking for something where would you look?

What is your website maybe we can advise you if we know exactly what type of business you are in.

pixeldesign

You better pay someone to make a website if you dont have one and optimize it so you can get organic traffic from search engines rathar than paying for advertising.You will see the difference.

PPC and SEO complement one another, to discount PPC and focus solely on organic is stupid in my opinion.

Paying for advertising is no big deal if you're making money. PPC is great because you can measure your ROI, converting keywords etc etc.

pixeldesign

Is not stupid at all.Why to pay/click when you can get thousands targeted visitors from search engines?I made few online shops and i know what i talk, but anyone can do what they think.This is my suggestion.

pixeldesign

pixeldesign wrote: »

Is not stupid at all.Why to pay/click when you can get thousands targeted visitors from search engines?I made few online shops and i know what i talk, but anyone can do what they think.This is my suggestion.

PPC can help with your SEO. It's not a fight between the two. PPC benefits your SEO in the long run.

I'm glad I didn't have to do much googling to back up what I mean.

PPC and SEO complement one another

The amount of time you wasted trying out new keywords with solely SEO must have been frustrating.

pixeldesign

For me as a seo strategist PPC advertising doesnt mean anything..is just a waste of money.PPC is just a very small part of help in seo.Google has hundreds of algorithms and their number increases every time due to bigger competition.In seo 2.0 even Bounce rate is important for google.This is just my opinion..it doesnt mean im right.Lets say you get 700 visitors/day from ppc advertising..you paid for all clicks but there is a small chance that one of them to buy your good/service.
Most businesses are looking for quick results and for that they use ppc advertising.Thats their problem.

emmax

yeah i have someone designing my website and its just about ready. i have googled all about it i was just looking for some more insight maybe from people who might know more about it! i am thinkin about google ad's but i think it would be a good idea to have it on some directory site, if there gettin the traffic it will surely help? even if i got one or two customers it would pay for it?:rolleyes:

pixeldesign

pixeldesign wrote: »

For me as a seo strategist PPC advertising doesnt mean anything..is just a waste of money.PPC is just a very small part of help in seo.Google has hundreds of algorithms and their number increases every time due to bigger competition.In seo 2.0 even Bounce rate is important for google.This is just my opinion..it doesnt mean im right.Lets say you get 700 visitors/day from ppc advertising..you paid for all clicks but there is a small chance that one of them to buy your good/service.
Most businesses are looking for quick results and for that they use ppc advertising.Thats their problem.

LOL, advertising doesn't mean anything??? you as an SEO Strategist...come on

For ****s sake, get it together.

Do you not think PPC comes down to what the product/service/conversion is and the ROI that comes from that ?

If you're such an SEO Strategist, you'd know that testing is the name of the game for one. And for that, PPC is amazingly handy for. You can test new keywords/landing pages etc QUICKLY and then USE the captured data towards an effective SEO campaign.

As I said, to discount PPC and then say advertising doesn't mean anything, you sound stupid and you're letting the game down big time with those comments.

pixeldesign

I dont like to say that again but yes PPC advertising means nothing for me as a SEO strategist...but it means something as a publisher.The user emmax can do what he thinks.Is his choice.I have 5 years experience in this domain and i know what im talking about.

Gman_Ireland

try www.ontraz.ie its FREE and you get a photo with it, they also will swap links with companys.

roastpotato

www.gumtree.ie and www.adds.ie would be some sites where you can advertise for free as far as i know. im sure there are plenty more of these sites in ireland...just google them..

also ask your web designer about search engine optimisation to make sure your website is on the first page of major search engines. i was told recently that twitter messages would bump up your google rank as well but not sure if this is true. but it does not cost anything so give it a try.

pixeldesign

roastpotato wrote: »

www.gumtree.ie and www.adds.ie would be some sites where you can advertise for free as far as i know. im sure there are plenty more of these sites in ireland...just google them..

also ask your web designer about search engine optimisation to make sure your website is on the first page of major search engines. i was told recently that twitter messages would bump up your google rank as well but not sure if this is true. but it does not cost anything so give it a try.

Yes is true.Twitter and Facebook especially became a SEO 2.0 tool .Those two websites doesnt help you to gain backlinks as they are using nofollow tags but if you have a strong network with few thousands of friends it will help you make your site more popular.

Huff n Puff

Emmax, my advice to you is as follows.

In terms of advertising online you have a number of options:

• SEO - organic search listings

• PPC - paid search listings

• Banner Advertising

• Email Marketing

• Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Forums, Blogs, Youtube etc)

• Directory Advertising

• Affiliate Marketing

Which marketing avenue to invest in depends on your budget. Most websites fail - this is a simple fact. This is mainly due to lack of marketing.

People create websites and expect traffic and conversions. This rarely happens. It's like building a shop in the middle of nowhere and telling nobody about it and expecting people to find it. It's not going to happen.

The fact that you are looking for ways to increase your online visibility is a promising start.

If you have little to no budget you will have to look at SEO, and Social Media. I would always advise people to go with the experts for all things Internet marketing. If the company are any good then they will pay for their fees and turn a nice profit for your website. However, it is possible to get strong visibility through these marketing avenues yourself. They do require a certain amount of technical knowledge though to implement. Get an SEO book and educate yourself.

5 Key SEO areas to concentrate on would be:

1. Keyword Research (explore using the Google Adwords: Keyword tool)
2. Meta Details (Title, Description tags)
3. Keywords in your content, headings etc
4. Link Building - centered around quality content in the form of a Blog
5. Landing Page Creation - tie this into your keyword research

Directory advertising can be costly and the returns can be very limited. Plus if you stop paying the annual fees then you are are left with very little online visibility. If your SEO is done properly you will outrank all the directory sites anyway for all the keyphrases that are important to your business. If you do pay for directory listings then make sure that you at least get a link back to your website as this will help your SEO a bit.

PPC or sponsored links can be highly profitable when done right. It can also lose you a fortune. I always recommend PPC to start up businesses as it can get you immediate returns, whereas SEO results can take months to achieve for competitive sectors. Brand new websites also find it harder to rank highly on natural search results. As your SEO results improve and the % of total traffic that arrives organically increases you can scale back your PPC campaign if you so wish.

If going with PPC then hire a company to create the campaign for you. Doing it yourself is probably not going to work and it will cost you far more in the long run. Do a 3 month trial and see if it works for you. It is easy enough to pick up Google Adwords vouchers for free - this can allow you to try it out without the risk of getting burned. I can't really advise on costs involved as I don't know what your business is.

Try and build up an email database on your website. People who sign up for emails are often valuable return customers. They are interested in what you sell so they are more likely to convert. Building up a sizable database could take months and even years. Designing and sending emails will involve more research from you but it can be done cheaply.

Banner advertising and affiliate marketing are areas that probably wouldn't suit your business model for now.

Hope that helps and goodluck with your online business adventures!

Huff n Puff

I have to back TheEntrepeneur up on the above argument

Pixeldesign - I have been in search marketing for a long time too and for you to say that PPC advertising doesn't mean anything to you is worrying. The stats that you can get from a PPC campaign can be hugely useful for informing your SEO strategy. The 2 mediums work very well together.

"Why to pay/click when you can get thousands targeted visitors from search engines?"

Because you will get

• thousands more clicks
• thousands more sales
• SEO results can take time to achieve especially for new websites. PPC can get you immmediate page 1 exposure. For most start up businesses year 1 is a make or break year. Many businesses can't wait around for SEO results to appear.
• In practice, PPC allows you to target a wider range of keywords than SEO so you can identify high performing keywords for their business. Keyword tools don't tell you the full story of keyword research. Stats specific for Ireland are also poor. PPC can tell you which keywords convert best for that business - these hard facts are invaluable. Any tool that can increase your keyword knowledge for a business is invaluable.
• "When a Brand name appeared in both natural and paid search results, The brand attracted 92% of the total clicks" Neilson Real Research.

pixeldesign

Let me explain why i said that PPC means nothing for me.If this means nothing for me it doesnt mean that it should mean nothing for others.
PPC is good for businesses as they need sales and not visitors.You can get few visitors and many sales or many visitors and few sales.Ofcourse the ideal is to have many visitors and many sales.I called me a seo strategist because i have good knowledges about what SEO means and i also developed my own tehniques/strategies and tools.If you read my previus posts you can see that i said "it means nothing as a seo strategist".A seo strategist is someone who finds new tehniques of getting organic traffic.

Huff n Puff

Point taken pixeldesign. I don't want to derail the original thread so I will leave it at that.