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Marketing your online business isn't as simple as hangingyour name above the door or placing an ad in the Sunday paper. Butif you play the game right, you can get closer to the Internetequivalent of a neon sign on a busy street. Below, we take a lookat some of the basics in getting you started: search engines,banners, link exchanges, mailing lists and auctions. Try them allto find out which ones work best for your start-up.
Getting The Word Out
Search Engines: Mostsurfers go through Web portals and search engines at some point tofind what they're looking for. If you don't have listingsin Yahoo!, Lycos and AltaVista, you're missing out. You couldgo to each search page, ferret out the link for adding your siteand spend your whole day submitting away, but software programs andWeb sites abound to help you register your site with more enginesfaster.
Before you get too excited, however, make sure you have all yourHTML in a row. An incomplete site submitted to a search enginecould be counterproductive. Be sure to include concise, accuratetitles and meta tags with descriptive keywords on every page. Type"meta tags" in a search engine to find sites that willhelp generate the appropriate HTML. Long lists of unrelatedkeywords buried in your page will just get your site kicked offsearch engines. You can visit SubmitCorner for tools and tipson preparing your page.
Banners: Banner ads arethe billboards of the Web. And just like billboards, wherethey're placed will make all the difference. A billboard alongan out-of-the-way dirt road won't generate as many customers asa billboard by the interstate. A banner ad on an out-of-the-way Website won't generate as many views and clicks as one onYahoo!.
The cost of doing business with a popular site can be high,though. Lycos, for example,offers advertising packages on its search engine that start at$2,500. That may be a bit steep for your start-up budget.
A better bet is to place banners on closely related sites. Ifyou're not sure where to start, check into a broker likeWebConnect. Brokers willplace, rotate, track and often even host your banners for a fee.You can keep tabs on the latest prices for banner ads at theSite Price Index.
Participating in banner exchanges is a low- to no-cost way toadvertise. For example, the Free Banner Exchange MegaList is agood place to hook up with an exchange service that meets yourneeds. Check out the banner ad glossary so you know what you'retalking about before you launch your campaign.
Link Exchanges: A closerelative of the banner ad is the link exchange. While link pagesaren't always the most popular destinations on sites, keepingthem well-organized with relevant sites doesn't hurt. The realboon comes from exchanging links with the sites you link to. Theold-fashioned way is to ferret out sites that complement yours,place links to them on your page and then contact them withrequests for reciprocal links. After all that, you should checkback periodically to see whether those links are still in place andto make sure they haven't been swept under the rug.
A site has even popped up to make your marketing life easier.LinkLeads.com is agargantuan catalog of sites that are all interested in exchanginglinks. Membership here, which is free, allows you to search forsites that specifically target what you're looking for. How youhandle each exchange is up to you.
Mailing Lists: Ifsomebody goes to the trouble of signing up for your mailing list,then they really want to get e-mail from you. You couldn't askfor a better marketing opportunity. Running your own opt-in mailinglist is a great way to retain customers. Couching your sales spielin the form of a newsletter or HTML-based message is an even betterway to get-and keep-attention in a crowded inbox.
As your list grows, you could spend all your time administratingit yourself, or you could go to PostMaster General. Dubbedan "e-mail mailing list management and deliveryserv-ice," PostMaster General does all the work of adding andremoving e-mail addresses from your list, scheduling mailings anduploading files. Prices start at $19.95 per month for up to 300recipients. A trial 30-recipient list is free to test drive.
If you don't have the time or the patience to build a targete-mail group, try NetCreations' PostMasterDirect.com. Itse-mail list management and brokerage service offers a database of15 million opt-in e-mail addresses based on specific interestcategories and an online ordering system for creating, testing anddelivering e-mail campaigns. PostMasterDirect.com's lists areup for rent for as little as 15 cents per name to as much as 30cents per name with a $1,000 required minimum order.
Auctions: Where on-linecan you advertise to nearly 16 million customers? The answer: eBay.With about 16 million registered users and roughly 2 million uniquevisitors per day, the biggest online auction site can be one of thebest places to get your company noticed. If you're selling Webhosting services, for example, auctions probably won't work foryou, but if you're in retail, you won't want to miss thisstellar opportunity. While eBay is the undisputed auction king, itdoesn't hurt to diversify through Amazon.com and Yahoo!auctions.
But remember, making a fortune through auctioning isn't yourgoal-drawing customers to your Web site is. A clean, concisedescription of the product and a well-placed link to your site areessential. If you aren't quite HTML-savvy enough to build yourown professional-looking auction ads, try a software program thatdoes it for you, like ePoster2000 from AuctionPoster.com. It'scurrently available at www.auctionposter.com as a freetrial download with a $29.95-per-year posting license fee.
And, last but not least, don't forget the real world. Ifyours is a click-and-mortar business, or if you provide serviceslocally or regionally, you should still make it a priority toadvertise in print. Alternative weeklies and local newspapers are agood place to start. Many papers also offer ad space on their ownWeb sites. Including a coupon or "mention for a discount"in your ad can help you gauge how much business it generates.
Terminology
Click-throughs: The numberof people who reach your site through a banner.
CPM: Cost per thousand, acommon pricing structure that is calculated using a set price perthousand page views for the page the banner appears on.
Hits: Number of filesdownloaded from the server; each page and each graphic on the pagecounts as a hit. It's not a very accurate measure of actualtraffic to your site.
Page impressions: Alsocalled page views, it's the number of people who see yourbanner.
Search Me
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 Active WebTraffic
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Active WebTraffic automates the process of submitting your Website to search engines and portals. The software can help registeryour site with more than 9,000 engines and directories and can beused an unlimited number of times. A Professional Edition isavailable for $99.90.
In The Post
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Aureate GroupMail
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Aureate Group Mail is aimed at mailing list do-it-yourselfers.Features include personalization, a spellchecker, e-mail addressverification and management for an unlimited number of recipients.A free edition is available for download.
Graphics A-Go-Go
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3D Impact!Pro
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Generic text on a one-color background won't get youanything but a boring banner. 3D IMPACT! Pro from CrystalGraphicsInc. uses a wizard-style interface to help you create interesting3D and animated Web graphics. A free demo version is available fordownload.
Check It Out
Want to get in on the e-commerce craze? Pick up a copy of Howto Dotcom: A Step-by-Step Guide to e-Commerce by RobertMcGarvey, BIZ Experiences's Web columnist. Packed with facts andinformation, How to Dotcom is the only book you'll needto get your business off the ground. Get your copy at Smallbizbooks.com or at localand online bookstores.
