Why does your business need a good website & SEO in 2015?
Lets look at what’s happening in the world and the way customers are looking for your business right now.
Gone are the days of the phone book and business phone directories such as the Yellow Pages as the primary way of searching for a business in the local area.
OK, so if nobody is using phone directories what are they doing to find your business?
Let’s look at some other forms of advertising and weigh up the pros and cons.
Local newspaper?
Maybe, but how much will that cost for an advert of a decent size every week? Even if you do spend a lot on local newspaper advertising, a website would greatly complement your advert. Your website address on the advert will encourage a potential customer to get more information about your business, products or services you offer that you couldn’t fit on a newspaper advert.
Pros:
- Targeted advertising in the areas you choose.
- You will get information about how many newspapers are circulated to give you an idea of how many people you can potentially reach
Cons:
- Expensive
- Limited time of exposure, on a weekly paper your advert is potentially only out there for a week
- Will your advert get seen, it’s easy to skip a page, or if your competition has a bigger advert.
Radio advertising?
Yes people listen to the radio every day, but are they listening at the precise moment your advert is being aired? Again if you do radio advertising a website will greatly compliment it and also help provide extended information that will help promote your business.
Pros:
- Targeted advertising
- If your radio advert is good it can convey your message very well
Cons:
- Hit and miss exposure
- Expensive
- If your radio advert does not stand out, it may be forgotten
- Is it the right medium for your business? Is your target audience a radio listener?
Specialist magazine advertising
Yes people may find your business if they happen to be reading a magazine and they manage to see your advert in the mix of other companies that are advertising in there. Like newspaper adverts they can be expensive and have limited exposure.
Pros:
- Targeted audience
- With a good looking and correctly sized advert can work very well
- You can get statistics to see circulation size to know what sort of reach you can get
Cons:
- Expensive
- Success weighs heavily on how good your advert looks
- Success weighs heavily on where you advert is located in the magazine
- A competitor can make your advert irrelevant if they have a better, bigger advert or offer better deals.
Website & SEO marketing
And finally some of the Pros and Cons of a successful website, of course we are big advocates of god web design & SEO so of course we may be slightly bias, but decide for yourself.
Pros
- Relatively cheap compared to the above methods of advertising
- You can compete with larger competitors if you appear higher up in a Google search
- More and more people are using mobile phones, tablets and the computers to search for a business, or product or service.
- Most people carry the technology with them to find your business, thus meaning they don’t have to purchase a paper or magazine to find you.
- 24/7 advertising, every day of the week.
- Means people from outside the area, or from anywhere in the world can find you
- Provides way of interacting with your customers directly even when your business is closed.
- Recognised by every expert in the industry as the fastest growing method of advertising.
Cons
- A website that looks bad (like every other method of advertising) will not produce a good return on your investment.
- Bad SEO methods can damage your long term online success.
- Be careful…there are a lot of so called ‘experts’ out there
