The Importance of an Internet Presence

By Jason Barta – Barta Media Group

It’s no secret that the internet has become the driving force behind business.  Internet marketing and communication has become essential for every serious business and organization. In fact, it is safe to say that many new business owners wouldn’t even consider opening their doors without an effective web presence; a presence that effectively reaches out to customers and potential customers with an informative, compelling reason to use their services.

Aim small -miss small - target your audience.

If you are a business owner it is imperative to at least consider to options for launching yourself into the internet market and, for that matter, the 21^st Century.  While the internet is not the only avenue to market your business, it will, without a doubt, connect you to the largest possible audience.  With that connection alive you can position your marketing campaign as an influence to the widest possible market ever known to man (it is the “World Wide Web” after all).

Targeting a larger, wider audience than traditional marketing is a huge advantage for many businesses.  However, some business owners aren’t concerned with the worldwide connection. They are looking for strategically target a more narrow audience.  With the internet, this is possible as well.

There are several marketing strategies that can help business owners narrow down their targeted marketing through the internet.  First, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a very reasonable approach to accomplishing this.  SEO is the process of making a website “search engine friendly”.  To take this explanation a step further:  Major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, crawl the internet basically “taking notes” (very descriptive notes) on every website it finds.  These “spiders” are looking for information to determine each website is about.  It then stores, or “indexes” the notes it gathers into a ginormous database.  Whenever a search is performed it literally checks the search term against the websites in its database and returns results that are the most helpful and accurate.  That being said, a successfully optimized website can return results that are very specific to a particular region or specialized product and truly arrive toward the top of a search engines results.  These results are known as “organic results”.  These are not paid or sponsored links, they have truly arrived at their ranking by being the most accurately indexed according to site content.  Sites that appear at the top of the results will always bring more traffic to that website; more traffic almost always means more business.

A second way to narrow your internet marketing is via pay-per-click advertising.  If you’ve done a search in Google recently you may have noticed results at the very top and also on the right side of the page inside a lightly shade yellow box.  The businesses listed there have purchased the rights to show up on that particular search as “paid sponsors”.  The nice thing about pay-per-click advertising (Google Adwords or Yahoo Sponsored Search) is that you only pay for the advertising when the searcher actually clicks on your link and arrives at your site.  You can also be very specific about what terms you want to be included in and to what region.  The down side to pay-per-click marketing is that paid results still only receive 25% of the search engine traffic while organic search results account for the other 75%.

Don't overdo it - and it'll work!

Email marketing has been another effective method of internet advertising.  While being controversial and often times just plain annoying, a successful email marketing campaign, when run properly (and respectfully) can most certainly be an effective way to improve your bottom line.  Sending out monthly newsletters, occasional sale notices or other information that your contact base will find beneficial is a great way to keep you business and service on the minds of your existing and future client base.  Be Careful though, for many people, such as this author, getting too many emails from one source can be extremely annoying.  It is imperative that email campaigns are run with respect to your contacts.  Don’t send too many too often and make sure that you are actually offering something of financial or practical value (preferably financial).  Otherwise your email become as loathed as the typical spam scam and will find itself relocated to Junk Mail or worse- the “Unsubscribe” list.

In closing, here are a few final reasons to start your business with an effective website.

1.  Be open 24 hours a day.  Day or night customers and potential customers can peruse your services and submit questions regarding your services.  Never worry about being your web store closed.
2. Add professionalism and credibility to your business.  Many people will not even consider working with a business that doesn’t have a web presence for the perceived lack of credibility and information.  Imagine if there are two businesses a similar distance but in opposite directions from your home.  You have heard that both carry a product that you are interested in.  One business, “Store A” has posted an attractive website with all the valuable information regarding their services.  There are pictures and descriptions and a contact page with a map and phone number.  You can find out pretty everything there is to know about their products and they’re even running a SALE this week!
   The second business, “Store B”, has no website.  You’re not sure what the store hours are, the prices or if they carry the brand you need.  The choice is simple.  In this scenario, “Store A” will win your business every time.
3. Reach a Huge New Market.  There are countless people that would never have even known about your business without your website.  Developing an attractive, informative, easy to navigate and searchable website can help you reach people anywhere-anytime!

Jason Barta is the owner of BARTA MEDIA GROUP, formerly  Jason Barta Web and Graphic Design based in Gwinnett County GA.  BMG specializes in websites that are attractive, informative, easy to navigate and search engine friendly.  Many clients have greatly benefited being at the number 1 spot in their respective fields in the major search engines.