Search Engine Marketing

There are a variety of ways to advertise your website on the internet.

Sponsored Search

You can place sponsored (paid) ads on the search engines that will appear when users enter search phrases related to your offerings (key phrases). This is a motivated, targeted audience. You are in complete control and can specify how broad or specific your targets will be. For example, if you have a home for sale, you may use some general phrases, such as "houses for sale" and have your ad show up whenever someone is searching for a house. Or you could target it to appear only when someone is searching from Michigan, or includes the word "Michigan" in their search. If you really want to target an exclusive area, you can use a phrase such as "Southeastern Michigan Horse Farm" to trigger an ad, ensuring that only people looking for exactly that will see your ad. You can be as broad or specific as you want.

For sponsored search marketing there are 3 main venues, with others coming online: 1) Google AdWords 2) Yahoo! Search Marketing 3) MSN AdCenter. With each of these models, you pay only when someone clicks on your advertisement. Your ad is shown only when someone types in a key phrase that you indicate is directly related to your offerings. There are many ways to constrain the budget and exposure of your ad. You can start with as little as $5 in any or all of the sponsored venues. The cost/lead can be tracked to the penny to make sure the Return On Investment (ROI) is positive and worthwhile.

Banner Advertisement

You can advertise your website on other websites. This can be accomplished as part of sponsored search on the affiliated content sites, or by contacting related website directly and asking for their marketing rates.

Traditional Marketing Outlets

Of course, you can market your website with standard print, radio, and other media channels. You should include your website address (URL) in every possible marketing collateral going forward. It should be easy to remember, and ideally include a search phrase shown to attract a lot of volume on a daily basis.