What are the advantages of advertising on the internet ?

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As with all advertising it depends on what you are trying to sell and where your target audience is, advertising on the Internet certainly works for some companies better than others. Obviously, a Bookstore with an e-commerce site has the advantage of being able to sell their product online, a plumber in a local town may be able to get the odd lead from the internet but the need for advertising online is almost certainly less.

There are however many forms of advertising online, I will quickly mention some of the main ones and some of the advantages/disadvantages involved:-

Having your own website - Setting up a simple web presence can be very cheap, although you may need to find or employ someone who can build and promote your website (this can lead to the development becoming more expensive). By setting up a website and promoting it in the right way you can increase brand awareness and sell products (to sell products you will need an e-commerce site which can again increase the cost) and generate leads for your business.

Banner/Pop-up Advertising - Banner advertising and Pop-up Windows can certainly increase your brand awareness, however a lot of internet users are becoming blind to banner adverts and immediately close Pop-up windows.

E-mail Campaign - Sending E-Mails to potential customers again is common practice, however again you should realize that many receivers of the e-mail will immediately delete the email and the conversion rates can be low.

Search Engine Listings - Gaining good position in search engines can certainly bring you targetted traffic - the user will normally find your site by entering terms that are relevant and therefore traffic can convert well. Good Search Engine listings goes hand in hand with how your website is promoted - or alternatively you can buy positions on certain keywords - this can sometimes be expensive, however you are picking exact words (or word matching) that lead to visitors to your site so they are often well targetted.

The above is just a few examples of advertising online, however one of the main advantages of some of the advertising options is that you can start as a small scale advertiser and then if succesfull increase the amount you spend on advertising. For example you can start buying keywords for your website through some search engines for pennies - and set a daily budget of only a few pounds. You can then monitor your returns from the advertising and increase or decrease your budget accordingly.

Happy Online 14th July 2003

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