It is estimated that Internet advertising will become the largest ad medium, at nearly $63 BILLION by 2011. You read correctly - BILLION!
Compare that to a measly $16.9 billion for the full year of 2006 or lame $7.134 billion in 2001 (Industry Survey Conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)), and you can't ignore the Internet advertising tsunami on the horizon!
The shift of advertising dollars to the Internet marketplace has the media business on its head! Newspapers as well as electronic media are scrambling to promote and monetize their online presence. The marketing landscape is in upheaval and changing so rapidly, that if you ignore the obvious signs, you'll feel sideswiped and dazed when your business legs start to buckle
What does this mean for advertisers currently using the traditional media of radio, television and print? Simply this: If the Internet is not part of your advertising arsenal, you are losing business to those who are aggressively using online marketing to promote their goods and services. I say "aggressively" because if you believe as many website owners do, that "if you build it they will come," you are hugely mistaken. Check these numbers. Here's what the Internet universe looks like:
Using 2006 numbers, there are approximately 100 MILLION WEBSITES serving up somewhere between 15 and 30 BILLION web pages. It is estimated that over 30,000 web pages go up every single day. Not only is it difficult to wrap your head around those statistics, but it is currently impossible to asses the full impact this is having on consumer buying habits.
Clearly, companies must embrace the power of the Internet to compete not only locally, but also globally! So where does that leave your company's website? Well, here's the bitter truth. Unless you are ranked on the first or second page of any given search engine, your website is virtually invisible.
Yes, you may have spent thousands of dollars on your not-so-search-friendly-flash-driven-website - but nobody knows you exist because you haven't made search engine optimizationpart of your website construction.
How can you compete?
Here are two choices.
1. You can start promoting your web site both offline using traditional media and online using PPC (pay per click advertising, banner advertising etc...
and/or
2. You can have some search engine optimization done on your site so that you get first page ranking on the major search engines for the keyword search terms that are most related to your business.
I mention above, “and/or” because even if you get first page ranking on Google and the other search engines, you should still continue using offline media to direct people to your site.
Website ranking is key if you want to stay in the game!
I advise my clients who have first page ranking, to do exactly this. It gives them an opportunity to do what no other advertising medium does quite as well as the Internet.
For example, when you direct a primed radio listener or newspaper reader to your site:
1. You welcome a receptive visitor and prospective client who will respond much better to the sales copy on your web pages.
2. You can show and sell using video clips as mini infommercials.
3. You can actually make a solid connection and build a long-term relationship with your visitor. Using powerful promotions to capture their email address, you can build a list of eager buyers that you can sell to over and over again!
Search Engine Optimization. It's something you should really be thinking about!
Noah Salzman is a search engine optimization specialist with over 27 years of advertising experience. To find out more on how to harness the Internet using website optimization, read this special article "SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and what your Web Designer Won't Tell You "