Boosting Your Sales Cont.

Getting to the top

Fact. Getting to the top costs money. The challenge is getting to the top within a sensible budget for our business. How much money it costs is largely dependant on how you go about it.

Basically there are two ways.

The first is a technique called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. There are many companies that will offer to increase your site's ranking in exchange for money. The trouble is that SEO is quite an intricate science, some would call it art, some would even call it a black art! There are a few basic principles that we can all follow, but outside that it becomes a time consuming business, both in learning how to do it and in actually doing it. That is why many companies out-source it. Fine, it works, but it costs a fortune and there are never any guarantees.

The second way is, in my opinion cheaper, faster, and better. That is to join a search engine advertising campaign. Probably the most popular and successful of these is Google's offering called simply, Google Adwords.

To give you some idea of the power and efficiency of Adwords let me tell you a quick story. Last year I was involved in setting up a new company in the construction industry. We decided to only advertise on the web. No Yellow Pages, no other advertising at all. We secured premesis, plant, tools etc and I wrote a simple website. When we launched we set up a Google Adwords campaign and set a budget of £300 per month. In that first year we turned over £96,000. I think you'll agree that's not bad for a start up business with less than 5 people in year one! Hopefully that whets your apetite for using Adwords.

Now that you have a website set up you too can use Adwords. Simply go to http://www.google.co.uk/adwords and set yourself up a free account. Spend some time reading how it works and then create your ad and point it to your MyBusinessHomepage URL.

If, for any reason I have failed to convince you about all of this just consider this. Your advert on Google only appears when someone searches for your type of product or service. You only pay for that advert appearing when someone actually clicks on it! When someone clicks on it they arrive at your site. They are already looking for what you are selling and there is a very good chance that if your site makes a good impression then they will call you and buy from you! Really, in the world of business advertising doesn't get any better than that, or if it does I would love someone to tell me how!

I hope this has been helpful and good luck with your business.