Getting visitors to your web site can break the bank
Last month I talked about how free or low-cost web sites can appear to save money initially. However, these sites can actually cause issues where it really matters, both with the image they give off and attracting visitors.
Good search engine results can generate business. Because most budget sites are mass produced, they lack the ability to get free 'organic' search results. To get organic search results requires experience. An experienced developer uses the site's coding, tags and wording to obtain high search engine results purely on its own merit.
Although professionally created sites can cost a little more initially, such knowledge and experience can provide a much wider range of search results, saving you a great deal of money in the long run.
Unfortunately, if you have one of these low-end sites, there is little choice but to pay for ongoing Pay-Per-Click advertising to try to drive visitors to your site. Pay-Per-Click is where a site owner tells a search engine, "If someone searches for these words, you show a link to my site, and I will pay you when it's clicked."
Google's PPC system is called AdWords, and these results display in the 'Sponsored Links' areas at the top or the right of the Google results.
The initial hook of Pay-Per-Click is that you can "set a budget as low as $100 a month." This sounds reasonable, until you do the math.
To test this, we took our client, Connie's Kids, who wanted Google results for 'Children's clothing stores.'
AdWords calculated that phrase would cost around 60¢ a click. So, at a budget of $100 per month, her site could be clicked about six times a day. The hard fact is that search engine users comparison shop, and even if you are at the top, you are still competing against at least ten other results. Sites in the organic results will probably look more professional, and may have better prices, so the bottom line is that any clicks paid for may not even become a sale.
This is where the snowball begins. If you don't get sales, you increase the budget to be seen more. Google said that approximately 8,000 local people search 'Children's clothing stores' a month; this would require a budget of over $4,500 a month, just for that one search term. AdWords is only for Google. Connie would have to pay every other search engine to get hits from them also.
Luckily, thanks to our own WebUpdate sites with FirstPage SEO system and tools, Connie is already on the first page of Google for that search term without spending a dime for Pay-Per-Click. Additionally, she has around 5,000 other search terms a month bringing visitors to her, from all search engines, not just Google.
Connie's site averages 15,000 new visitors a month. If she were paying 60¢ for each, her annual budget would need to be over $100,000. While that is shocking, the most we have heard a local company spending on Pay-Per-Click is $15,000 a month - an incredible $180,000 a year.
Such figures are way above most businesses' budget, which is why we do not offer Pay-Per-Click schemes.
If your site is not bringing you the search engine results you need, our WebUpdate systems with FirstPage SEO included starts at $5,000. Our basic WebUpdate system starts at $2,500 and can expand and grow as your business grows, adding more features and functions as needed.
Now is the perfect time to consider our WebUpdate systems and take advantage of our advanced marketing, SEO, promotion, and security features designed to give your business the best competitive edge online.
Terry Young is the founder and CEO of Internet Marketing and Design. Since 1997,
his computer programming and graphic design knowledge have kept his company
at the forefront of the latest technology in web development.
