05/08/2015
According to the Centre for Retail Research, every 30 seconds, £781,237 ($1.2m) is spent through e-commerce around the world. More than that, the e-commerce market in the UK has grown by over 16% in the last year alone.
Pretty crazy when you think about it.
Question: Of this staggeringly huge number of sales which seem to happen over the internet every thirty seconds, and having been placed in an online market that is growing faster than almost any other… what percentage of these sales are yours?
Answer: Not enough!!!!
Too often companies compare their performance against their own record or against their closest competitors. The truth, however, is that while this comparison may be useful for traditional business, promoting over the internet is quite different. For starters, it has a constantly growing real-time supply of customers searching for particular products and services. Right now – this second – someone is looking for the exact product or service you provide.
In the past, retail and consumer-driven markets were demanding industries. They took effort and expertise to run smoothly, and quality was everything.
Shops spent much of their time and energy fishing for customers in a relatively small pond. Today, with the ocean of the internet, old-school fishing (one at a time) doesn’t make much sense. Instead, the best way to succeed is to think bigger – to lay down a well made and resilient net (a website) and close any holes that you spot (optimise web pages!).
There are two basic routes to establishing a website in a specific industry. The first is the more traditional route – this includes promotions, accreditations and referrals from partner businesses. Users visit a site with a specific aim that does not demand further qualification for them to make a purchase. Then, there are newer methods such as such as web page optimisation that can help increase the rate of conversion for ‘cold’ customers – ie. increase the chance of securing a deal once someone new visits a website.
However, it can often be a lack of traffic – people visiting the website – which can slow things down.
For the purposes of keeping things clear, I will not discuss content (things like videos, articles or pictures) here – that is a whole other story. I will instead talk about some easy-to-measure and simple to understand the techniques that work for almost every type of business imaginable.
There are two main ways to boost traffic to your website over the internet. The first is SEO – by ensuring it appears when a user searches for specific words and phrases on Google. The second is digital advertising – paying a host (such as a website, directory or search engine) to place a link to your website, with the aim of convincing their users to purchase your product / use your service.
Again, for the sake of clarity, I will not include SEO in this article. While it is not inherently complicated, it is a process of refining and improving that takes time, patience and experience. In this case, of the two options, advertising is perhaps more attractive because it is immediate.
Google AdWords is often considered the best tool when considering business promotion on the internet.
In short, it is an online advertising tool designed to give online companies and local companies a steady stream of traffic to their website. It is relatively inexpensive (you only pay for the number of people who actually visit the website) and completely tailored to your goals and aims.
Much like SEO, in Google Adwords, you decide what keywords and phrases to use. If someone uses these words and phrases in Google – your advert will appear next to the normal Google search.
To have your advert on Google Adwords, you bid on words and phrases against other people who also want the same search terms (and have the same criteria).
Say, for instance, you are company A, and you sell UGG boots in a little store in Hackney. You would set the advert to only appear for people searching the phrase ‘UGG boots’ in Hackney.
If someone else – say company B – also bids for the same phrase (and they do actually sell UGG boots on their website) then whoever has bid the highest, will get the top spot. This can either be set automatically – where you set the amount you are willing to spend each day – or manually, where you limit the amount you are prepared to pay for a click.
As a highly flexible and results driven tool, Google Adwords offers a simple yet highly effective solution. In addition to being a great source of new warm leads at low cost per user, Google Adwords can also offer some really interesting and unique information a business can use to its advantage.
For instance, it allows you to see what people actually search for when they find your business. This knowledge may allow you to get some insight into what your customers are looking for and start a discussion to meet any concerns they might have head-on.
Our FREE unbiased digital review looks at key factors such as competitor advertising, landing pages and recommendations for SEO and Adwords. We produce easy-to-read reports at the end of the month to track campaign progress and a quarterly optimisation session to ensure campaign/s are highly effective.
As Google partners, we are proud to be experts in AdWords advertising. To order your free digital review – please contact us on 01702 619 139 or use the contact form provided here.
