Attracting More Customers: The Top Four Ways to Advertise Your Site

Suppose you threw a party and no one showed up? If you create a website but don’t advertise it, you'll have the same result. Even the best website is a “passive” marketing tool. To help prospects find it, you must continually prompt them to type in your address or click your links. And that makes advertising an indispensable component of online success for many small and medium-size businesses.

Here are four proven ways to use advertising to bring traffic to your site:

1. Fine-Tune Your Buys. The first step is to choose the best sites for your online ad campaign. They should attract your target audience, no matter how general or niche-specific. And they must offer an appropriate advertising environment, so your message will be right at home. Let’s say, for example, your website sells puzzles for children aged 2 through 10, and you want to target their parents. While many sites frequented by adults with children might represent cost-efficient buys, your best bet would be to advertise on sites with relevant information for parents in order to reach your prospects when they’re in the right frame of mind to consider your offer. When it comes to buying space, large ads perform better than small ones. Skyscrapers (which run vertically on the page) and big box units are more visible and offer sufficient space to present a compelling message. And you should negotiate for placement near the top of the page, since readers may not scroll down far enough to see ads at the bottom. Consider using an online ad network (such as www.247realmedia.com) to help you make complex buys that include dayparting (buying blocks of time during the day when your advertising will appear) and frequency caps (limiting the number of times an ad will appear) on multiple sites. Suppose you were advertising to the educational market. You might choose two or three websites and fine-tune your buy so just visitors with .edu domains would see your ads up to six times during peak business hours, and only within specific text pages.

2. Reach Newsletter Subscribers. By placing your ads in online newsletters and e-mail alerts, you can deliver your message to highly qualified prospects within appropriate content. Advertising in subscriber newsletters confers credibility, and, best of all, it’s often extremely affordable. For example, a website owner targeting small businesses online could advertise for a week in the e-mail alerts sent by the Business Journals www.bizjournals.com/mediakit to any or all of their 42 markets for $75 per thousand. You can approach the owners of opt-in newsletters about advertising opportunities on your own, or go through a site such as Topica (www.topica.com), which offers ad space in newsletters in more than 30 categories from “autos” to “women and family.”

3. Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising. Want to know what’s fueling explosive growth in Internet advertising? It’s pay-per-click advertising, which, according to Jupiter Research, will increase by almost 50 percent to generate $1.6 billion in ad revenues this year. This is understandable, considering that 83 percent of people online perform searches for answers to specific questions. With pay-per-click advertising, you can choose keywords or keyword combinations and pay a modest amount (from just 5 cents to about $1) each time someone searches on them and clicks your ad on the search results page. Your ads appear across the top and down the right side of the search results page and are a quick and inexpensive way to guarantee your listing will get a prominent position. For best results, test alternate ad copy until you discover exactly what stimulates the most click-throughs. For more information about pay-per-click advertising, go to Yahoo.com and/or Google.com, or check out the SBsuccess.com article Getting Started with Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

4. Make Cross-Promotion Memorable. For a well-rounded marketing campaign, it’s essential to integrate your online advertising with your off-line efforts, including print or broadcast advertising, direct marketing, and public relations. The challenge is to help prospects remember your domain name after hearing or seeing it for only a few seconds.

We all know that registering a domain name in various forms (such as .com, .net, and .biz) protects your online identity. But have you thought to register all the names or phrases your target audience might use when trying to find you on the Web? Or how about registering a domain name that reflects what you’re selling? “Domain parking” lets you point multiple domain names at your website, so you can market with the one your target audience will remember best.

For example, a dog training company named Jones & Associates Training Inc. might choose GoodDog.com as its primary domain name to use in print and online advertising, then register all forms of both names and point them at its website. It’s just one more way to build traffic and sales over time.

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Kim T. Gordon is an author, media spokesperson, and small business coach—and one of the country's foremost experts on entrepreneurial success. She is a columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, and her newest book, Bringing Home the Business, identifies the 30 “truths” that can make the difference between business success and failure. Gordon offers additional information and advice through http://www.SmallBusinessNow.com, the largest site on the Web devoted exclusively to marketing a small business.