We’re asking you! Contact us today and let us know what you think is the best way to increase sales online. Here’s what some people have had to say that have written us:
Mary, from Chicago, Illinois, writes:
“Increasing your sales online is not always easy. You first have to find out if you’re audience is even there. Our company handles intermodal and trucking cartage from the railroads, and we were finding it hard to increase our transportation sales on the web. At first, we figured it just wasn’t there. But then, one of our customers recommended to us a thing called Google’s ‘Keyword Tool’. It allowed us to see what terms people were searching for, and how many were actually doing all the searches. We found that, in fact, many people were looking for our business online, they just couldn’t find us. We hired a SEO company to build us a second website, and within months, we were receiving calls off the hook from customers that were now able to find us online. It doesn’t matter if the country is in a recession, if you’re looking to increase your revenue, profitability and expand your customer base, online marketing and promoting your website through search engine optimization is a MUST. Even though the print directories want you to think people are still looking at your big ads in the books, the truth is, the majority of people are now turning online to find local business information, and also to comparison shop and see if you’re company is good or not based on reviews. It’s for that reason that after you hire a good SEO company to take care of your website, you make sure to check constantly online that no one has written anything bad about your business.”
Patrick, from Seattle, Washington, writes:
“Increasing your sales on the web takes three things: a good website, a good search engine optimization company and good advertising.
In my opinion, a good website is one that loads up fast, has nice pictures and looks professional on every single page. You also need to make sure your phone number and contact info are present everywhere. I can’t stress that enough.
A good search engine optimization company is one that only charges for results. Don’t get suckered in by some of these other seo companies that are BIG scams. We used over ten companies before we settled on an agency called Hot!, from Chicago, and we were even skeptical of them at first too because our account manager was an idiot (thankfully he was fired and replaced with someone that has just done wonders for our site); but before them, we probably forked over a good fifty thousand dollars on search engine optimization trying to rank for keywords such as “software” and “custom software design for corporations”. We ranked for those keywords but found out the hard way that absolutely no one was actually searching for them; not our customers, anyway. Our new company was able to discover certain keywords that actually have brought us in some very lucrative contracts, and because we only pay them for the clients they bring to us, they have a business model I greatly respect and admire (though, how the hell they’re still in business is anyone’s guess since they’re so much cheaper than other internet marketing companies). So if you’re going to outsource your internet marketing, as you should, make sure you do it with the right internet marketing company. What is the best internet marketing company?
For starters, it needs to be one that guarantees customers, not keywords or clicks. The latter are scams.
Second, it needs to be one that uses the latest developments taking place within the internet. This means they have to offer something called Web Analytics. If they don’t offer a web analytics program, they are NO GOOD. Web analytics allows you to see who’s coming to your website, what keywords are bringing them in and whether or not they’re buying or calling. You need this data to see if the company is doing their job. If they don’t offer analytics, don’t bother.
Third, do they offer call tracking, click to call, or live chat? These things do wonders to your sales numbers. We learned it the hard way, but having a toll free number on your site is not enough. You need to offer tools that allow them to contact you instantaneously on your website, or give them the option to have you call them. Our new company Hot! put these things on our new site, and the number of people who contacted us doubled overnight. I’m not kidding, you need to have these things and if the internet marketing company you’re going to do business with doesn’t offer them, don’t even bother.
Fourth, do they offer free pay per click advertising? If you’re being charged to have someone handle your PPC advertising on AdWords, I’ve only got four words for you: YOU’RE BEING RIPPED OFF!!! A friend of mine had Yellow Book or Dex, one of those yellow page companies; handle his pay per click advertising. Guess what? He threw one thousand dollars a month down the drain. He received four leads during those three months of awful pay per click advertising. Four leads!!! When he called to see what the hell they were doing, the sales rep told him someone would call him. No one ever did. I managed my own AdWords account before, and when I saw his, I was flabbergasted. The keywords had nothing at all to do with his business; it was like someone touched a button and a machine pumped them out. He was paying for traffic that did not even want to do business with him. He isn’t alone, either. I’ve heard dozens of stories from these so called internet marketing companies that promise to improve your ROI, increase your sales, find the terms your customers are searching for, and in the end, all they get are keywords designed through a computer program. This is wrong, people. If you want to do truly effective pay per click advertising you have to do several things.
The first is you have to find the right keywords.
The second, you have to make sure you only so search advertising, not that thing Google calls “content network” advertising. The latter is a scam and websites themselves click on your ads to make money. I didn’t receive one lead from the year I spent using Google’s content network, and when I checked to see what sites those ads were showing on, they were bad sites. If you’re advertising on the internet, make sure you only advertise on good sites related to your core business with your core demographic present. It’s the only surefire way how to increase your sales on the internet.
The third thing you have to do is make sure you’re not bidding too much. Being in first position is a waste of money. Go for positions three to six; you get just as much traffic as being in number one, and it’s much less expensive!
Fourth, get a company that watches out for click fraud. This is becoming a very big and expensive deal. This is also something I didn’t know much about until we signed on with Hot!’s service; but going by my estimates, my competitors probably clicked on my ads over a thousand times in one year costing me five thousand dollars! This is completely unethical and outright wrong, but some companies do it to gain an unfair competitive advantage. I say, to hell with them. And, if you get a company that prevents your ads from showing to your competitors, you won’t have to say anything at all. Hot! Search Marketing saved me close to five thousand dollars this year by saving me from click fraud; make sure you get an internet advertising agency that does the same.
Five, get a company that reduces your costs. My new one cut my PPC costs in half by a thing they call PPC optimization. They redid my ads and made changes to my site, which boosted a thing called the “quality score”. In the year I spent with AdWords, I never had any luck improving the quality score, so make sure you get someone who knows what they’re doing.
Six, DO NOT PAY FOR START UP COSTS. Several of these so called pay per click advertising firms charge up to nine thousand dollars to set something up that only takes three to four hours to do. This is one of those elaborate pay per click advertising gimmicks that assumes you’re stupid; when choosing an internet ppc ad agency, make sure it’s free and there are no hefty start up costs.
If you follow these recommendations (along with a few handy ones at Microsoft’s small business center) you’ll be primed and ready for online success. Just remember: go with a company that guarantees and only charges for results and you’ll be fine.”
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