These days, a business needs to optimize it’s Web presence. It’s just not enough to hire a web designer and put a site on the Internet like it used to be. Now, a site needs to be marketed in order to gain customers. That’s done with several different types of marketing, like adwords and Search Engine Optimizing. Marketing on the Internet is pretty inexpensive when compared to the cost of more traditional outlets for advertising-a company can reach a wide audience for a fraction of the cost of more traditional advertising budgets.

In order to have a successful Web presence, you must first research the competition, which is simple to do. Ask yourself; Is their site easy to navigate? Does it appeal to it’s target audience? Are they easily accessible on Google and other search engines? Is their domain name easy to remember? Is their product affordable and of good quality? Or is it too expensive?

Then, research the customers you are looking for, depending on the type of site you want to establish. Ask yourself these questions; Do they utilize some websites, like YouTube, more than others, like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter? Are they looking for a quality product at a reasonable price, or are they willing to pay more? Do they think a purchase out for several days or weeks, or do they buy on impulse? These are just the first of many questions along these lines that it’s a good idea to ask yourself about the customers you wish to reach.

You can target your customer in several ways, the most popular being what’s called geo marketing.

Basically, geo targeting/marketing is when a specific customer is targeted based on their geographic location by tracing their IP or ISP and then sent content based on their location. Geo marketing is also used to target a customer based on their personal interests and activities.

The more traditional way of marketing your website is to use adwords, or what’s generally known as keyword advertising. Take for instance, you have a swimming pool business. You want your company’s website to get as many “hits” as possible. So, you go on Google and type in several search terms for swimming pool companies. You then design your website to have as many of those keywords on the site as possible. That way, when someone does a Google search for “swimming pools”, your company website is one of the first ones that come up. It’s a general way of marketing your website, and quite simple to do.

The Internet is here to stay. everyone knows that. So, make the Internet work for you as the owner of a small business, instead of making it work for others.

Search engine marketing is a kind of marketing that helps websites be seen by viewers. It is like the yellowpages but for the millions of websites floating around now a days on the internet. How it works is that a website will be created by an owner and then a search engine will be chosen. There are quite a few to choose from such as Yahoo, Google and Inbox, ones that charge per customer view and ones that are free. Keywords or tags will be entered for the website in the search engine so when a someone who is seeking a specific thing can type in a keyword and a list of websites with those keywords will be populated with a brief description of what is in that website. Website owners can choose to boost their websites to the top of the list by purchasing Pay Per Clicks which is why you always see the most popular sites at the beginning. The more money you pay for pay per clicks the more likely that your website will be seen over and over again.

For an example of how a search engine works say I am going on a trip to Las Vegas. I need to find a hotel but I need to some reviews also. In the search bar I would type ‘hotels las vegas reviews’. It would populate a list of popular hotel websites and websites that have reviews on these hotels or both in one website. All of this took about 30 seconds. Today time is money and most people want things as quick as possible which makes search engines a valuable resource.

Search engines can be detrimental to a businesses success since a good majority of people have access to the Internet and prefer using it for quick finds for vacations as well as other things. With a few keywords into a search engine a potential customer can have names of hotels, resteraunts, places and things to do, shows, pictures, show clips and other tourist points of interest at their fingertips in a matter of seconds with a list of reviews from previous customers. These 5-10 minutes of a person looking at their website can quickly result in a decision of the customer. If the website is very resourceful then you have the domino effect happen to where word of mouth will happen boosting the sales of that website.

So from one person typing in a few keywords can have a major impact on a websites future since people now a days would rather purchase or gather information from a website rather than another source such as the yellowpages or newspapers. They get it all online.

As a busy las vegas company or business owner, there are only so many things you could do in a day, especially things where some element of skills is required. Designing your own website is one such activity, one which should really be designed by a professional Las Vegas website design company (we like to keep business local). If you are not a professional designer and developer, you should leave it in a professional’s hands, and a professional web design firm (like my company Perkolate.com) will work closely with you to ensure it meets your marketing goals and is properly and professionally designed.

Here are the key reasons you should hire a local Las Vegas website design company:

It’s Technical - Leave it to the Experts

Designing websites is definitely not something that just anyone can do. Sure, there are do-it-yourself websites out on the internet, but they have a lot of limitations. You neeed a professional company that can help you shape the design and flow of your website. You need a company that is experienced in specific coding languages like PHP, ASP, HTML and professional softwares like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash. If you are not familiar with these languages and softwares, you may well have to learn them, because without them, you cannot even think of starting to design a website.

Time is of Essence - Don’t Waste Yours

If you’re the average business owner or run a company, do you really have the time to be trying to build and launch your own web site? Rushing through things at this stage, even if it is assumed that you have the appropriate skills for web designing could mean you making a complete mess of your website. That is why I recommend that you hire a professional web design company right here in Las Vegas who will get everything done quickly and effectively.

More Cost-Effective In the Long Run - Don’t Do It Yourself

If you hired someone in house, you would have to cover all of the costs associated with hiring an employee. That employee most likely will not have all of the marketing, strategy, programming and development skills you might need for your corporate web site. Or if you are trying to build the website yourself, I ask you, wouldn’t your time be more wisely spent doing what you do best in running and growing your business and leaving a professional web design company to do what they do best and in your best interested? In most cases, working with a professional web company works out to be the most cost-effective option.

For more information on professional website design and development solutions, visit my company’s website at www.perkolate.com. (We are located in Summerlin)

Cheers!

Website marketing in Las Vegas has become a fierce competion with the proliferation of new Las Vegas websites, search engines and affiliate marketers. Following a multi-strategy marketing approach can help a web site avoid disappearing into the abyss of cyberspace.

Most website marketers agree that the most important key to getting a site known is to follow Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, guidelines. Internet surfers readily use search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and Bing to find their desired information. SEO techniques focus on ensuring that the content of the website’s pages include key words that will maximize the site’s page rank for search results. Savvy marketers always aim to be on the first page of a search.

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a broader and typically more expensive approach to promoting a web site. It involves paying a search engine company to include the site’s link in its directory. The link appears in advertising top bars or side bars when a person searches for specific keywords related to the website. Paid advertising on Search Engine Result Pages, or SERPs, has become a competitive business.

Another option for marketing a website is to place Pay-Per-Click (or PPC) ads on related websites. Each time someone clicks on the ad, which can be either a text only link or a small graphic button, he will be channeled to the advertising site. The advertiser determines the monthly budget limit which caps the amount to be paid for clicks.

Affiliate marketing has also become a huge force among webmasters. Websites may choose to do a joint marketing campaign in which they cross-promote each other’s site. This strategy can be effective when the sites are related in theme or product. This approach can be set up as a free or PPC agreement.

Email blitzes can also get the word out in a consistent fashion. Weekly emails promoting sale specials or informative newsletters can increase awareness of a site. Purchasing a list of email addresses is one way to build a quick audience; a less expensive and possibly more effective approach is to build one’s own email list. An attractive benefit of using emails is that people who enjoy reading its content are likely to forward the email to their circle of influence.

Promoting a website does not mean using online methods only. Offline promotions may include including the website’s URL in magazine or newspaper print ads. Some advertisers promote their website’s address on bumper stickers, billboards, flyers and business cards. Other media such as short television and radio spots are alternative avenues to market your web site.

The most compelling way to market and promote a website is to use a combination of approaches for maximum exposure.

Maintaining your Las Vegas company’s online reputation should be a priority in helping to market your company. There are times when every company and/or business owner has a customer that has had a negative experience at one time or another.

Most of the time, a savvy business owner can correct the problem by offering a discount, a free service, or even a simple apology. But if it gets past that point, your customer could go out onto the internet and write a negative review about your business. When other potential customers do a search on the internet for your company’s name, they might just find a negative review. That of course would probably mean they will not contact your company or business or buy anything from your online store.

More Information on Online Reputation Management:

• Online Reputation Management
• What is Online Reputation Management?
• Definition of Reputation Management
• Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide

You have a website and it is helping promote your Las Vegas business and your products and services and finding new customers. You want to sell more through your website, but how do you properly test the messaging and copy writing on your website in order for you to know how it is performing and if in fact it is causing a visitor to take action?

Internet Marketers talk a lot about testing your sales copy on your website, but very few discuss details about the methodology of testing. It is easy to get confused and potentially remove changes that were helping increasing sales on your website.

Back in college, I took a Chemistry class where we did a fair amount of experiments and our professor was a stickler for teaching us the proper way to perform our experiments. One day, we were give a series of experiments to perform and he stressed the importance of testing. When performing an experiment there are many things you want to change one step at a time in order to perform the experiment properly. As an impatient teenager who was waiting for class to be over, it was an interesting learning experience.

Our professor would say, “In order to properly perform this experiment you need to make one change at a time and then measure the results of that change. Then, will you know which change performs the best and gives you the desired results. You could make all the changes all at once, but what if you undo the change that works?”

His words came back to me when I started my Internet Marketing years ago. If I am making copy changes to my websites or sales copy to monitor the conversion rate then I need to make one major change at a time, drive a sufficient amount of traffic to it, and then analyze the results. If the response rate and conversion rate increases, then I keep the change. If it decreases, then I discard the change and try another.

By performing web site testing in this fashion, you will know exactly which changes best affect your conversion rates and be able to build upon them in order to gain the highest possible conversion rate for your site.