Get Real Customers to Your Website

(Ms.) Jj,
Creative Director
Vision IPD

Having your advertising budget vanish with no increase in sales is every businessman’s nightmare. When you add the expense of a web site, and web advertising, everything becomes more complex. Getting customers to business web sites is an often misunderstood process that is ripe for scams and rip-offs which end up costing small businesses more than they can afford to pay. The good news is that business owners can easily learn how to avoid scams and get the most for their online advertising dollar.

Newcomers to Internet marketing often believe that the best way to generate traffic is through paid advertising links and “pay per click” banners on other high-traffic websites. Other services offer costly “search engine optimization” schemes that they say will put you at the top of the page on Google or other search sites. Unless s/he is already a sophisticated, savvy web researcher, the business owner who must make sense of the claims and counter claims has little to go on. Real life experience helping small business clients has shown Vision IPD – and our clients – that one can have success on the Internet and keep expenses within budget.

Paid Internet advertising, which we call “pay-to-play”, includes paid links, “pay per click” banners and targeted “ad-words,” where an advertiser pays to have their ad displayed on the search page for the targeted term. The popularity of “pay-to-play” advertising has varied since its onset. Once widely ridiculed, the idea has become more popular with the increasing visibility of the Internet and popular search engines. It has also become more costly. In the mid 1990s, advertisers were paying an average commission of 11 cents per click. By the end of last year, the average is reported to be $1.70 per click, with some highly prized search terms going much higher.

With the higher prices comes more fraud, at the expense of the business owner. What initially looks like Internet advertising success – as traffic to the advertised site soars – rapidly turns sour when the advertiser realizes that the traffic, clicks he has had to pay for, does not come from potential customers interested in the products. According to a recent AP report by Michael Liedtke, “Some swindlers have hired cheap overseas contractors to sit in front of computers and click on targeted links all day.” Paying for these clicks can quickly drain the business bank account.

Clients of Vision IPD have not reported being victimized by click fraud, but neither have they seen success with “pay for play” advertising. Clients who previously paid for ad words or premium placement typically say, “I get this bill every month, or every year, and I pay it. But what am I getting for my money?” Vision IPD’s analysis of their web site statistics reveals their money would be better spent elsewhere.

Vision IPD usually recommends a program of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is not only the most cost-effective way to obtain a good search engine placement, it also targets the web-savvy customers who routinely avoid clicking on ads. However, we caution that this technique can also be used to defraud.

SEO companies that market via email or paid Internet advertising, often charge very high prices and use unethical and unproductive techniques. The unproductive methods (blanket, automated submission of the site to a large number of search engines) merely cost the business money for nothing. Search engines can distinguish submissions from automated sources and are programmed to disregard them. The unethical methods can backfire. They will usually result in immediate – though short term – high search rankings. Thus the SEO company can report the new, higher rankings to the business owner, who willingly pays the high cost.

A few months later, however, the savvy owner notices that traffic has dropped off or his site is no longer listed on the search pages. The less Internet-minded may not notice at all. The latter is the most common result and what the unethical SEO company counts on. When the savvy owner contacts an ethical company – as many of Vision IPD’s clients have – we can point specifically to the fraudulent technique that was used and which initially led to high rankings and subsequently to the site being dropped. Search engine technology plays a “cat and mouse game” with fraud and when they find sites that are artificially boosting rankings, they take action.

There are proven ways to obtain consistent high ranking for relevant terms. They rely on the content of the site and the ability of the webmaster to use the page title and description in concert with the content to reinforce the relevant terms. These methods can bring the site onto the first search page and keep it there for a number of terms on the major search engines. Of course the number of competing sites, the specificity of search terms – phrases rather than old fashioned “key words” – and the site layout all factor into the ranking. Did you know that if your business name is on your site only as a graphical logo, it will not show in a search?

In Internet marketing, we recommend business owners keep several things in mind:

1. Like your mother said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
2. Get a second or even third opinion.
3. Get bids from local businesses for your project.

The best way to avoid Internet fraud is to be informed and to work with vendors and suppliers that you know and trust.

For a free consultation to see how your business can benefit from professional design services on the Internet or in print, contact Vision IPD Incorporated, PO Box 309, Smyrna, 28579 phone 207.433.0687 or email vision(at)visionipd.com