Pay Per Click and Other Internet Advertising Options

So, you've done everything you can to optimize your site and you're still not getting enough traffic? It may be time to pay for advertising!

Millions of people use search engines such as Google, Yahoo Search, and AOL Search to search for goods and services on a daily basis. If you are not getting the traffic and/or page ranking results for your site that you desire, then consider the following checklist:

• I have optimized the Meta Tags for my site.
• I have analyzed the content on my site for its interest to my target market.
• I have contacted owners of appropriate sites for referral links to my site.
• I have included links to my site on all company business cards and other stationary, and on all print advertising.
• I have submitted my site to the top search engines and waited 4 months for results.
• I am still not satisfied.

If you answered "yes" to all of those statements, then you may find that pay-per-click or other search engine placement advertising is an effective way to attract the customers you want.

How to Prepare:

If you decide you would like to purchase pay-per-click advertising, first make sure you choose the most accurate search terms for your target audience. For example, you may think that "professional web site design" would be our best key phrase to use, but "web site design company" is actually a search term used 5 times more often!

Overture has a "Keyword Selector Tool" that you can use to figure out search engine placement for phrases you might be considering.

Also, consider that your target audience may be regionally specific and use terms accordingly. For example, although we have clients from all over the USA, we especially like hearing from local companies. So we aim for top rankings in the search engines for the phrases, "web site design oregon" and "web site design eugene oregon."

Where to go:

There are many advertising companies out there offering their services and you can search for them in the "Yellow Pages" and on the internet, but here's a start for you...

• Google Adwords: https://adwords.google.com/select/
• Overture Pay For Performance: http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/ps.jhtml
• Biz Rate Shopping Search: http://merchant.bizrate.com/oa/merchant_listings/
• Shopping.com: http://www1.shopping.com/aa13-partners_advertise

Where to next?