More than 80 percent of consumers are now searching online for local services—making it crucial for businesses to be where the customers are. However, is online advertising worth the effort?
Well that depends if you’re looking for short-term or long-term results. In today’s tech-savvy society, the best way to get traffic to your website is to properly optimize your site so it receives organic traffic. This means using relevant keywords and quality content that visitors will want to read (i.e. engaging blogs, articles, video, etc).
Spending time and money on search engine optimization (SEO) often generates better results than online advertising in the long run—it just takes longer. Another perk of investing in SEO is that it continues to generate results long after your ad has run its course.
The second best—and cheapest way—to increase your online presence is to engage with social media. With millions of daily users, social media is a free and easy way to interact with your consumers. So before you spend hundreds of dollars on advertising, you could try generating a Facebook campaign and encourage your target audience to participate.
However, if it’s immediate results you’re seeking, online advertising may be for you—and it has its benefits. For example, you have full control over your message and what your listing says. You will take up more space on search engine results. And lastly, online advertising is easy to track and generally cheaper than traditional advertising.
There are also a plethora of options out there. Facebook is one option. Facebook Ads are fairly cheap and offer narrowed targeting. For instance, you can micro target very specific audiences by age, sex, location, education level and interests.
Or, you could advertise with a major search engine. Google—who now owns 67 percent of the search market—offers pay per click (PPC) advertisements. Bing and Yahoo!, who make up the other 33 percent, also offer PPC advertising.
PPC allows advertisers to pay a website each time their ad is clicked. This can give your business the immediate boost it may need. However, one tip before enrolling in PPC advertising is to create a landing page—when customers click on your ad they will be immediately redirected to a new page. This page will provide them with useful information regarding your product or service and will keep them focused on your advertising message.
In sum—online advertising can be valuable. However, you should never place all your eggs in one basket. Having both an online ad and an organic listing not only increases your chances of being discovered by consumers, but it also increases your overall search engine ranking. Therefore, if you have the time and money to invest in SEO, social media and online advertising it will definitely pay off in the long run.