Getting your business found in a sea of competition

By Aldie Beard

In a previous article titled What’s the Best Medium to Advertise Your Business?...Confessions of a Reformed Radio and Television Advertising Salesperson the overall concept of why the Internet is the superior advertising medium for your business was discussed. This article goes further by showing you how to utilize the power of the Internet to increase your sales and grow your business. The goal is to show you how to effectively and affordably market your business on the Internet.

By some estimates, the Internet already has over 6 Billion web sites with over a million new pages added every day. So, how does your business get found by your best potential customers on this massive database before they find your competitors? In order to beat your competition to the Internet punch, you must first understand how the Internet differs from the other media out there.

When your business advertises in other media you are essentially hunting for customers. When you use the Internet properly you are putting your business in front of those customers who are hunting for you. Do you see how the Internet offers much more focus to reach your best customers with less waste and usually much less cost? Imagine a billboard on the busiest road in your town. Lots of cars will see this billboard every day, right? Now imagine that same billboard on another busy road in your town, but the only people who travel on this road are people who are actively looking for businesses like yours. Do you see the greater value of the second billboard vs. the first? This is the amazing value proper use of the Internet has to offer your business.

The key to winning more customers on the Internet is to realize that your best potential customers are everyday, more and more turning to the Internet for information on specific products or services. We believe that the Internet is replacing old school advertising mediums like The Yellow Pages. These days people let their fingers do the walking on a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN Live to find what they are looking for.   So the question your business should be asking itself is: “How do I reach these customers before my competition?”

The key to winning these customers who are actively looking for the products or services your business offers is being seen or found on the results pages of search engines (called SERPs) before your competitors. The latest statistics at the time of this writing show that over 70% of people utilize Google when they are searching the Internet, so let’s stay focused on Google.

Google offers two primary kind of results when people utilize it to search for something, pay per click and organic.   Many Internet statistics today show that only about 20% of people click on the pay per click offerings and about 80% click on the Organic (sometimes called natural search results) that the search engine gives in response to a search inquiry. So getting your business found in these organic listings is a critical component for your business’ Internet Objectives, but there is one more critical piece of information you need. Your business needs to come up on the first page of these organic listings. At Find IT Engine, our philosophy for our customers is that if you are not on the first page (the first 10 names that come up in any organic search) your business is pretty much invisible on the Internet.

It is no longer sufficient to have a great looking web site. At Find IT Engine we believe that a good looking web site that nobody can find has little to no value. An average web site that comes up quickly on the SERP for Google has much greater value when it comes to recruiting new customers and increasing the awareness of your business. Naturally, the best situation is to have both a good looking web site that also comes up before your competition.

Our company, (Find IT Engine) has had great success helping small and medium size businesses win more customers by obtaining first page organic listings on search engine which helps your business beat your competition. We may be able to help your business achieve similar results in both an affordable and effective manner. Please e-mail us if we may be of service helping your business beat your competition to the Internet punch.