QUESTION: I recently launched a website for my sporting goods business. Do I need to do anything special to attract customers to my website? I know nothing
about search engines and marketing as such. Please tell me where to begin. --
Sean M. ANSWER: Sean
http://www.hotspurfcshop.com/Authentic-Kyle-Walker-Jersey/ , that is a question that has been asked by every business person who has ever
launched a website. If I build it, will they come? Of course they will -- if
you?ve built a website that appeals to dead baseball players. For those of you
who didn?t get the ?Field of Dreams? reference, let me put it this way: No,
Sean, if you build it they will not come, at least not without some effort on
your part. Assuming that a website will automatically attract customers is the
single biggest mistake that many business owners make. It is this mistake that
eventually leads them to dismiss their website as a failure and abandon their
online sales efforts. I can?t tell you how many times I?ve heard a client say,
?Well
http://www.hotspurfcshop.com/Authentic-Kieran-Trippier-Jersey/ , I threw up a website, but nobody ever came to it and I didn?t sell a single
thing from it! Dang thing was a waste of time, if you ask me ?? Forgive me, but
?threw up? is the operative term there. These short-sighted entrepreneurs (God
love them) mistakenly think that all they have to do is throw up a website and
that their business will automatically double overnight. And when nothing
happens they blame it on the infallibility of the Internet, on El Nino, on the
Bosa Nova, on their customers? everything but their own lack of marketing
efforts. If you build it
http://www.hotspurfcshop.com/Authentic-Kevin-Wimmer-Jersey/ , will they come? That, Sean, depends totally on you. When it comes to attracting
customers, opening an online business (or an online branch of an existing
business) is no different from opening a traditional brick and mortar shop.
Without a little fanfare and a well-devised marketing plan, chances are your
website will become just another spot of roadkill on the Information
Superhighway. The first step in devising your marketing plan is to ask yourself
this question: Who is my customer? Who is it that I want to attract to my
website? Believe it or not, this is a question many entrepreneurs fail to ask.
The identity of your customer is incredibly important because if you don?t know
who your customer is, how can you expect to market to them? The next question
concerns the locality of your customer. Do you want to attract a local or global
clientele to your website? If the answer is local
http://www.hotspurfcshop.com/Authentic-Jan-Vertonghen-Jersey/ , then you will gear your marketing efforts toward customers in your own backyard,
which means incorporating your website launch with your offline marketing
efforts. If the website is the online branch of a brick and mortar business,
include the website URL in all your print materials and advertising campaigns.
Consider running ads in the local paper, on radio or TV announcing the launch of
your site. Use direct mail or in-store posters to announce the site launch to
your existing customer base. In short, keep doing what you?re doing to attract
customers to your physical store, just add your website address to the mix. Just
remember, it?s important to consider your website a branch of your brick and
mortar business because that?s exactly what it is. A good business website will
help you sell more products
http://www.hotspurfcshop.com/Authentic-Hugo-Lloris-Jersey/ , widen your range of clientele, and increase your revenue without adding
overhead. Don?t sell your website short. Make it work for you. If you are
seeking a global audience, your marketing efforts will be quite different.
Attracting customers from around the world is a more difficult task than
attracting customers from around the block. Fortunately, the task is not
impossible. The Internet has leveled the playing field in many ways. Now every
business, no matter how large or small, has the ability to do business
internationally. In the most basic sense, an online marketing campaign to
attract global customers should include the following efforts. Register With
Search Engines There?s not enough room in this newspaper for a thorough
discussion of search engines and their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in
driving traffic to a website. Suffice it to say that 95% of search engine
traffic comes from Google and Yahoo
http://www.hotspurfcshop.com/Authentic-Harry-Kane-Jersey/ , so start there. It?s also important to realize that just registering with search
engines does not guarantee you traffic, but it certainly can?t hurt.
Unfortunately, the free search engine lunch ran out a couple of years ago when
search engines figured out that people would actually pay for listings and
higher placement. Since that time the only way to guarantee a high (or at least
higher than others) ranking is to pay for it. The two most popular
pay-for-placement programs are Yahoo?s ?Yahoo Express? and Google?s ?Adwords.?
Visit their respective websites for details on these programs. Be prepared to
spend several hundred dollars at a minimum to get your site listed. Exchange
Links With Similar Sites One free ? and potentially effective - way to drive
customers to your website is through link exchanges with sites of similar
interest. Locate sites that make a good match to your own and contact the owner
to ask if they will link to your site in exchange for you linking to theirs. If
you sell golf balls on your website, set up a link exchange with another website
that sells golf clubs. You post a link to them and they post a link to you. It?s
called digital back scratching, and if done properly, can work well to drive
traffic your way. Go To Where The Customers Are If the mountain won?t come to
Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. One little known
