Ways of Building Traffic (Paid)
There are many ways in which to build traffic to your website - by paying for it. If you have an online advertising budget, you will be spoilt for choice with ways to spend it! Therefore it pays to spend a little time working out what it is that you want to achieve with your budget and how you will know if you have achieved it or not.
There are various options out there, here we outline some of the most common methods of using an online advertising budget.
Google Adwords
This is where you sign up as an advertiser on Google's hugely popular Adwords scheme. Then your adverts appear for relevant searches. For instance if you are selling pashminas and someone searches for pashminas, then your advert might come up. The system is quite complex and there are dedicated companies out there that purely manage Adwords accounts. However, the basics are that you pay for each click on your advert there is, and compete with others for placements... this means that the more you pay the more likely you are to appear at the top of the adverts listed for a particular search.It is worth reading about the scheme in detail through Adwords help before signing up so that you can get the most from the scheme as soon as possible - be careful to set limits and not commit too much whilst you learn how to use the tool. Over time you simply need to measure the return you are getting for the investment - if you are generating more business in leads and referrals then you are spending it's working for you, if not then it might not be best for you or you might simply need to think of better or different ways of managing your Adwords campaign.
Either way, this can be a quick way to give a traffic boost on relevant searches to even the newest of sites, and save waiting for the slower process of building listings and ranking power organically.
Partner Advertising
Partner advertising is where you pay to advertise on another site - and typically one that is relevant to you. For instance if you are a personal trainer then you might want to advertise on a website for those looking to lose weight; if you offer clothing for babies then you might want to advertise on a baby names or young Mum's support site and so on.Here there will be various methods. You might be asked to pay per impression - this means every time your advert is displayed, you pay - and typically a very small amount. Or you might pay per click - as with Adwords, you pay when someone comes through to your site. Alternatively you might simply pay some sort of flat rate, e.g. £20 per month or more or less depending on the traffic.
What is key is that you monitor how much traffic comes from these sources with your stats and also what those visitors do when they hit your site, so that you are protected from wasting money if a particular advertising avenue is not fruitful for you.
There is also a method called cost per acquisition where you pay only if someone actually buys a product from you. For instance if you set up an affiliate scheme then people can list your adverts on their site and you pay them only if someone comes through to you and buys, in a sense an affiliate scheme is a halfway house between free and paid as you only pay if someone purchases from you.
As well as advertising on partner sites that you identify as relevant, you might also choose to purchase text links from other sites and directories - for instance the various online listing business directories that do charge for a listing, or charge for a premier listing.
As there are so many directories you can pay to list on you should consider contacting a few companies already on a listing directory to see if they have had any benefits - anecdotal evidence suggests that most people who pay often several hundreds of pounds to list in a directory get no business from it and chalk it up to experience - by doing some research yourself and checking the traffic a particular directory that charges gets you might be able to save some budget, or alternatively know that you are committing money well spent.
Site Sponsorship
A less common method but simply another form of advertising is site sponsorship - here you pay to have your site listed as site sponsor and ideally get a link through to your site too. Or you might get a tagline at the bottom of their newsletter saying 'sponsored by...' for instance. Often hosting companies use this method by offering clients a lower rate for their hosting/traffic in return for a sponsoring line on the website or in a newsletter recommending their hosting services.As mentioned at the top, the above list is by no means exhaustive but lists a few of the popular ways to use an online advertising budget.
Finally, let's look at the future of your business website, in the last article entitled Onwards and Upwards.
This guide to building a business ecommerce site is by Clarity Media Ltd
Quick Links
Researching the opportunity... Site strategy... Site structure... Interactivity... Ecommerce... Future proofing and updating... Creating content... Choosing images... Site build... Launch... Measuring success... Building traffic: free methods... Building traffic: paid methods... Onwards and upwards
Home page: building a business website guide
Quick Links
Researching the opportunity... Site strategy... Site structure... Interactivity... Ecommerce... Future proofing and updating... Creating content... Choosing images... Site build... Launch... Measuring success... Building traffic: free methods... Building traffic: paid methods... Onwards and upwards
Home page: building a business website guide
