What is online advertising?
The term online advertising is simply a term that relates to advertising online, or advertising over the Internet. In practice online advertising is about getting your website in front of the people who are interested in your product or service. All you have to do is find the best terms and phrases that people search for who would like to purchase exactly your goods and services. If you can do this then your online advertising will be successful, however, if you select the terms and phrases that do not relate to the goods you are selling then your keyword based online advertising efforts will likely fail. It really is as simple as that.
In fact more and more small business owners are using online advertising to market their goods and services to their target audience testing different keywords to specific pages of their website in an attempt to get more leads from their online advertising campaigns. And guess what? Yes small business people are finding out that without a doubt advertising online is the most economical way to market their goods or services.
For those of you who are unsure if online advertising programs even work just open a pay per click account with Google, Yahoo or Bing and see what that does for you. It is simple enough. If you want to see how valuable targeted keyword based traffic is regarding sales of your products or services this is the easiest way to do it. One thing, before you get that paid traffic account, ask yourself if you were a prospective buyer of your product or service would you be inclined to buy your goods after visiting your website. Be honest about it. If the answer is no then work on your landing page, that is, the first page people see when they click on that online ad from Google or Yahoo or Bing. Be consistent in the message to your visitors. If you can include testimonials from previous customers that would be great. You need to have a defined privacy policy so that new customers know that their information is not sold to marketing firms, you know that happens all the time. Do you provide some sort of guarantee for the goods you sell online? If not why not? If you do then you are miles ahead of your competitors. Well done.
How can online advertising help my small business?
Online advertising is so flexible that even small businesses can afford to look into advertising online. Where else can you track leads per advertising keyword? Where else can you track the cost per lead? Where else can you track the dollar cost per sale? Only online advertising allows you to select the keywords for your online advertising campaign and track the effectiveness of each and every keyword in terms of sales and revenues. This is the ultimate power of online advertising. You wonder why Google has become a powerhouse in keyword based online advertising. Send us an email to info@onlineadvertising.net and we will help you get started with all this online advertising stuff, in very simple easy to understand terms.
Why do I want to use advertising online for my web site?
Having your web site advertised on a search engine is important when you know recent findings on the habits of search engine users. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that:
1) 80% of users typically visit only the first three results from a search query.
2) 54% of the users views only one page of results in each keyword search session.
3) 19% of the users view the second page of search engine results, and less than.
4) 10% looked at the third page of search engine results.
How can we be sure that online advertising works?
According to market research sources, search engines outperform all other online advertising media in driving visitors to web sites. Moreover, consumers are five times more likely to purchase products after seeing search listings versus banner advertising. In fact, statistics show the following:
1) 77% of Internet users employ search engines more frequently than any other online advertising media, surpassing banner ads, Web links, and e-mail links as the leading tool for discovering information about a product or service.
2) 84% of Internet users who are online four or more hours each day reported they use search engines frequently to discover Web sites and find products or services.
3) 55% of Internet users are more likely to purchase online after seeing search listings versus 9% for banner advertising.
Is the Online Advertising industry shrinking, or is it growing at a reduced rate?
Growth in online advertising is back and getting stronger every day -- the recession in online advertising is over, according to eMarketer. Search engine keyword based marketing, like Google AdWords, is still growing at double digit growth rates, and per click revenues are increasing too. More and more business people are understanding the power and simplicity of search engine marketing and how online advertising benefits their business (in terms of sales). So yes the world economy is growing again, ever so slightly, however online advertising (specifically search) continues to grow at a healthy pace.
The world of online advertising can be divided into a several different advertising options. These options are not exclusively the only areas from which to choose, however they represent the most popular areas within the online advertising menu. And they are:
1. search engine advertising: more than 50% of the total spent last year in online advertising. This relates to keyword based search engine optimization and paid advertising via pay per click campaigns. The three biggest sources of this type of advertising are Google, Yahoo, and Bing {MSN}. There are plenty of additional smaller online search advertising options but these three are the best of the best and each one has a pay per click advertsing interface that is simple to use. Just in case you are wondering the big three search engines represent 98% of the entire search advertising market. Get it correct with the big three search engines and you are getting it right with 98% of your keyword based search audience. The great thing about search engines is that they make it so easy to purchase traffic. In fact online advertising has now become as easy as click, setup, and pay. All you need to do is select the appropriate keyword(s) for your service offerings, select the geographic region you want to represent, and away you go. Note that search advertising is paid per visitor so if your ad is not clicked on you pay nothing. How would you like to buy a billboard on the road that you only pay for when someone calls you. Experts refer to this type of online advertising as an outstanding deal. Even google will give you free credit card processing for all the goods you sell online providing you are purchasing traffic from them and providing your ROI (return on investment) is less than or equal to 1,000 percent. Even Google thinks you should be able to make ten times your online advertising spend in total revenues. That speaks volumes about online advertising right there.
2. display ads: 21% of the total online advertising last year and falling fast. Banner or contextual advertising is not popular and is not working, even at these cheap cost per thousand impression rates. Here you rent space on a web site and if you get lots of visitors to your site great since you pay for the space and not for the visitors. This is not the best way to advertise, but there are plenty of places to get CPM deals in the $0.60 or lower range so why not pay next to nothing and see what sticks.
3. classified advertising: 17% of all spending last year or just over $4 billion dollars spent on classified advertising. So next time you say classifieds are not for your company or service offering you better think again. In terms of dollars spent last year classifieds came in at roughly one third of the amount spent on keyword based search. Classified ads run at a cost per space and not for visitors directed to your website so again you are paying per thousand page impressions whether people click on your ad or not.
4. lead generation: 6% of all advertising spending last year, or over $1.4 billion dollars. It is interesting to see Google use lead generation in some cases since we all know Google is getting short end of the stick on their paid keyword based advertising (per click). How do we know that? Well if I am a company and I spend $1 to make $3 from traditional advertising (TV, radio, newspaper) and now I am spending money with Google to the tune of $1 for each $9 in revenues then it stands to reason that Google is getting the sorry end of the stick compared to the cost of traditional advertising. Some argue this is exactly why keyword based search advertising is destined to grow.
5. rich media: 4% of all spending last year or almost $1 billion dollars. This sort of relates to display ads, except that these ads are video targeted and most networks know that the targeting aspect alone will improve conversion rates. In advertising the better the targeting the higher value and the greater the advertising revenues. Could this be why Google bought youtube for over $1.5 billion dollars?
6. email: holding on at 2% of total online advertising last year. Hard to believe email advertising accounted for $500 million dollars in revenues last year. That is a lot of money spent on email advertising.
Why is search online advertising valuable to you?
Search online advertising brings keyword based search traffic to your door. Keyword based search brings exactly your targeted audience to your ad message.
Technology experts predict that more and more people will access the Internet at a higher speed than ever before and this added speed makes getting audio or video news and information simple and fast. Keyword based video advertising will get increasingly popular as the cost of broadcasting that video over the Internet falls and as more and more people can see that video clearly (as a result of increasing access speeds). How neat would that be if we could see a video of the product or service before we actually bought it, or see the people behind the company that sell us that "catalytic converter". Online advertising via video feeds to your cellphone from live or recorded messages are only a moment away. Technology is moving so fast even the online advertising industry can barely come up with applications that meet the changing (and better) Internet technologies. The future of online advertising looks bright and very exciting to be sure. It is up to you to make sure you understand the changes that are taking place and up to you to become part of the online advertising boom.
How can you make online advertising easy to understand?
Online advertising is made easy by the search engines. Put it this way, if you can read then you can get your product or service on any of the big three search engines in less than ten minutes. All you have to do is open an account at Google or Yahoo or MSN and away you go. It doesn't get any easier than that. They have experts who help you every step of the way, and quite frankly their advertising programs are so user friendly it is incredible. Online advertising made easy.
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