So who do you think your competitors are in your market, I am guessing that the answer you just gave is not who your actual competitors are.

Let me explain a little, you probably said that your competitors are the other people in your area who are selling the same thing as you, or the website that sells the same thing as you.

However when you are talking about on-line marketing this is not who your competitors are, your competitors are any website that ranks higher than you in the search engines for the terms that you need to rank for.

So it is possible that you are in competition with wikipedia and ebay, this is because to get your website and your products in front of your potential clients you need to be at the top of the search engines for the most relevant keywords.

How do you do this you may be asking, well the secret is good Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) if you use good search engine optimisation and keyword research you can plan your march up the search engines and you can ensure that you are able to outrank your true competition at the top of the search engine rankings.

Promoting a website

When promoting a website you need to think about how you want to do it, do you want to pay for the traffic or do you want to get it directly through the search engines by utilising the organic search engine rankings.

Both solutions have there advantages and disadvantages.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

The advantages of PPC

• It is fast – you can set up an ad campaign and it can be delivering you traffic within a hour or two.

 

• Targeted traffic – You choose the terms you are found for and that way you know that the visitors you get are all targeted to your product or service.

 

• You set your budget – You can decide in advance how much you pay for a term and how much you spend overall.

 

• Geo targeting – You can choose what countries and regions to advertise too.

The disadvantages of PPC

• Cost – It can be expensive if you do not set a budget or if you choose the wrong phrases then you can spend a lot of money quickly.

 

• There is a lot to learn – To get the most from your pay Per Click campaign you need to understand how to test and track results.

 

• Click Fraud – This is more of an issue with some networks than others and in some business sectors but there have been cases of people clicking on ads to either generate revenue for themselves or to deplete the budget of a rival company.

 

The organic listings

The advantages of the organic listings

• No cost – The organic listings are often referred to as the free listings.

 

• Targeted traffic – By using good Search Engine Optimisation or SEO techniques you can target specific words or phrases to get found in the search engines for.

 

• Multiple listings- Often when you optimise for one term on a site you are able to rank well for a number of other terms at the same time.

 

• More clicks – More people click on the organic listings than click on the PPC listings so if you show up well in the organic listings you will get more traffic.

 

• More credibility – If you rank well in the organic listings you are often considered by visitors to have more credibility than those that are seen to have just paid for their positions, this can result in dramatically increased conversion rates.

 

The disadvantages of the organic listings

• Time – The only real disadvantage of using good SEO practices to get ranked better in the search engines is that it can take time to show for competitive phrases.

 

I hope you can see that Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a vital component of your marketing and website strategy.

John (Super) Birch

Chris Stanbury and John Birch from Cravenplan Computers were hailed as heroes today when they stepped into the breach at the last minute to give a presentation on Search Engine Optimisation and on-line marketing.

Cravenplan were invited to the event held by business link as attendees, unfortunately the guest speaker was unable to make the event and just fifteen minutes before he talk as due to start, the organisers of the Open advice and support day at The Olive bowl Gillingham asked if Chris, who is well known for the popular Search Engine Optimisation seminars he presents, would step into the breach and give the presentation.

The audience were treated to an hour of well researched and up to date information about SEO and on-line marketing and questions were then invited from the floor, and following the lively Q & A both Chris and John were available for one to one advice sessions that proved extremely popular.