Internet Marketing for Small & Medium Enterprises

Here's a step by step guide on how to market your business over the Internet.

1) You need a website that works for you.

We all know that the first step to going online is getting your own website. But it's important to know what you want from your website. Think of your website as another vehicle to generate revenue for you, and not just a pretty brochure.
Web design houses are a dime a dosen, and you can get freelancers who can design a website at very low costs.

But remember to ask yourself these questions before you part with your money:
Can the proposed website help to improve efficiency or relieve operational work?
What do I want my customers to do when they come to my website?
Does my website showcase my products or services accurately?
How simple will it be to update the website on my own?

If your potential web designer cannot guide you through this thought process, then you should think twice before hiring him. Experienced web usability consultants will be able to help you and make recommendations based on your business model. They may cost little more but remember, your website is an investment. Invest correctly in the beginning and your website will bring more business than you imagine.

2) You need to market your website online.

Now that your business exists on the web, the next step is to let people know of your existence. Only when people are aware of your website will they visit it, only when they visit your website will you be able to convert them into customers. High visibility means high traffic, and more traffic means more potential customers.

There are many methods to market and promote your website. You may choose to market your URL (i.e. your website address e.g. www.webspider.sg) through traditional advertising such as print ads, flyers and in-store promotions. These are viable methods but they tend to be more costly. Here are some cost-effective online marketing methods to consider:

a) Advertising on search engines

Advertising on search engines is one of the most cost-effective methods that increases the visibility of your website and generates more traffic. Advertisements on search engines appear when people search for a certain keyword that is related to your product/service and which you have targeted. These ads are usually at the top or on the right side of the page and labelled as 'sponsored links'.

These advertisements are cost-effective as you only have to pay for your ad each time someone clicks on it. To get started with this, you can approach a search engine marketing consultant to manage the whole advertising campaign for you. If you are Internet-savvy, you can actually try setting up and start a campaign on your own with Google.

Remember, you are free to set a daily/monthly budget that you are comfortable with. You can monitor the progress of your ads and measure your ROI before you decide to increase your budget.

b) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This marketing concept is similar to advertising on search engines, but SEO involves the enhancement of the organic search engine ranking of your website. Organic rankings refer to search engine listings that cannot be paid for (unlike the sponsored listings), they are found on the left side of the page.

When your website is optimized for search engines, it means that your website will be listed on the first few pages of the search engines when someone searches for a keyword related to your product or service.

Why is it important to have high rankings on search engines?

90% of all internet users use search engines to look for products and services and 88% of which do not look past the first three result pages on the search engines. Therefore, in order to capture the attention of your potential customer, your website needs to be listed on the first three pages of the search engines. Otherwise? They will find your competitors!

SEO is a laborious and tedious process of making your website search engine-friendly and building links. It's probably worth your while to outsource it to the experts. However, SEO usually involves a significant amount of investment. Once again, beware of vendors who charge way below the market rate, unless you are certain of the results they can deliver. It could well be too cheap to be true.

WebSpider has come up with a payment scheme for SMEs that allows you to start at a very low cost and pay only when the traffic to your website increases.

3) Retain your potential customers through your website

Once new visitors arrive on your website, it is up to your website to retain them and hopefully, convert them into customers.

Does your website provide useful information?

Can visitors find the required information easily?

It is important that visitors find useful information fast, as internet users tend to have a very short attention span. If they don't find what they are looking for, they leave, and an opportunity is missed. Sometimes, visitors may not immediately purchase a product on your website but if they found your website useful, chances are, they will come back.

It is a good idea to have a option for visitors to register on your website for a newsletter or to join your mailing list. That way, you will be able to keep track of the prospects who visited your website. By keeping them in your mailing list and through regular communication, you can establish a relationship with your prospects, thus making it a lot easier to convert your prospects into customers.

In conclusion, it is vital to view your website as an investment. It can be tool that can generate leads and acquire new customers without you lifting a finger. It also opens the opportunity of reaching out regionally and globally to new customers. Your website is of little value to you unless you market it well. Internet Marketing is cost-effective and measurable, so you are able to track where your dollars are going to in order to make informed decisions.