Before you decide where to spend your website advertising
dollars, you owe it to yourself to spend a few minutes to
read the information provided here. It could save
you thousands of dollars!
"Organic" search engine listings are those listings that
have not been purchased by an advertiser. On Google, the "organic" listings
are those results found on the left side of your screen.
The cost per click for Lake Tahoe's competitive keywords
can easily exceed $3.00. A common metric used, is your cost
per 1000 impressions.
It is increasingly difficult to build a website
representing a single small business and get it to rank well for
highly competitive keyword phrases.
Some Lake Tahoe portal websites have switched their focus
to advertising revenue. In order to save costs, they have
forsaken keeping their site's information up to date in
favor of low cost linking schemes. This strategy is risky at
best.
Your website's server logs contain valuable
information about where traffic to your
website originates. Referrals tell you which
webpage contained the link that was used to
access your website.
It is best to avoid any portal site that
utilizes "framed" links for your website.
The purpose of your advertisements on the
Internet,
is to have someone click on your direct link to
your website.
Just as you focus on building content in
your website, you should focus on building
content in your Internet advertising.
Several of the available Lake Tahoe portal
websites are maintained honoring the notion
that your customer surfs the Internet to
look for advertisements. The Internet was
designed to enable information access. A
subtle and important difference.
With Internet advertising, your first line
of copy may come from many different
sources. Examine the copy. Which copy would you click on?
If your Internet advertising has the
"look and feel" of a newspaper or
magazine's Want Ad section, do you really
expect your ad to perform any better?
'Triggers'
30 Sales Tools You Can Use to Control the
Mind of Your Prospect to Motivate, Influence
and Persuade.
Joseph Sugarman
ISBN 1-891686-03-08
Let's face it, when it comes time to
drive more traffic to your website, your phone can ring off the
wall with offers. Many, too good to be true. You will want to
focus your ad dollars wisely to augment a long term strategy to
optimize your website's content for the best "organic" results.
Pay Per Click Advertising
PPC services can be a valuable tool to
drive traffic to your website. Advertising your website with a
reputable search engine will allow you to increase your
website's traffic, if your website is not highly ranked
for the keywords most often used to find your business's
services.
For many, the 3 major search engines:
GOOGLE, YAHOO, & MSN are the obvious choices for "Pay Per Click"
services. If your keyword phrases are highly competitive, you
can expect to pay $500 or more per month to run your ad campaign
on a major search engine.
Portal or Directory Internet Guides
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! There is
strength in numbers for some "organic" search engine results.
These sites rank well, in part, because they contain numerous
pages covering some geographic or general services concern.
There are, perhaps, a dozen Lake Tahoe
Portal or Directory websites worth some consideration. The
primary advantage to you, is a savings in advertising dollars.
How do you know whom to try?
Why Dream Lake Tahoe?
There are few frustrations as annoying as spending part of
your limited ad budget on advertisements that do not work. Hope
slowly gives way to despair. One of my customers commented about
their advertising efforts with a local newspaper:
"The only
time the advertising (paper) generated any significant new
business, is when they ran a feature article on my company!"
The same may hold true for your advertising promotions in a
trade magazine, or on an Internet website. Think BIG! Think a
full page ad on the Wall Street Journal! At a fraction of the
cost, this is the stuff of the Internet.
'Be Featured' on Dream Lake Tahoe
Gossamer is pleased to offer an effective
advertising opportunity for your Lake Tahoe business. Be
Featured! Unlike advertising in a local newspaper , or magazine,
or some portal websites. Your advertising on Dream Lake Tahoe
will provide your business with a great first impression.
How important is that first impression? We compared the traffic generated by a $500 per month ad
campaign from one of the major search engines, to that generated
by our 'Be Featured' advertisements on Dream Lake Tahoe.
Jan
2005
Feb
2005
March 2005
DLT
PPC
ORG
DLT
PPC
ORG
DLT
PPC
ORG
21.5%
35%
43.5%
27.6%
36.5%
35.9%
29%
21.4%
49.6%
11.5%
15.6%
73.3%
7.7%
14%
78.3%
7.7%
8.3%
84%
7.2%
22.5%
70.3%
8.6%
13.2%
78.2%
6.5%
11.8%
81.7%
Comparison of traffic referrals for three Lake Tahoe websites.
DLT - Dream Lake Tahoe,
PPC - Pay Per Click,
ORG - Organic listings
Take this simple test. Go to your favorite search engine and
search on 3 or 4 keywords starting with 'lake tahoe', followed by
one of your company's major products or services. For example, you
could search on 'lake tahoe rental', or 'lake tahoe catering'. If
you find your company's website is listed in one of the first
three pages, CONGRATULATIONS.
If, on the other hand, you find a listing for Dream Lake Tahoe, then
By the way, be sure to try
this on YAHOO, GOOGLE & MSN. A hit on any one of these
services is a guaranteed traffic booster! If you like, we can you
save you some time and generate a
comprehensive report for you.
Advertising Triggers
The fact that becoming 'featured' works is based on some sound
advertising principals. All copy writers should be familiar with
this general rule:
The purpose of the first line of copy is to get the reader
to read the second line of copy.
The purpose of the second line of copy is to get the reader
to read the third line of copy.
...
On the Internet, our task is somewhat tougher, we must get our
reader to take action and click on the next link!
Readers of Joseph Sugarman may be familiar with this advertising
trigger. In Internet terms, your potential customer climbs to the
top of a slide by initiating a keyword search. With the search
results, a choice is made. How well is your slide oiled?
The slipperiest slide is the link that get clicked! So you are
attentive to the oil at the top, have you paid attention to how
well oiled the rest of the slide is? Does your slide slip into a
sale? When your slide (Internet advertising) is well oiled, your new customers are drawn toward your website like
moths to a fire.
Customers are compelled to click on your link, which compels
them to click on another link, which eventually lands you a sale!
Now check that advertising trail toward your website, are you
featured?
For more information about our web hosting,
design, and advertising services please give us a call.
Order our products and
services online!
(530) 583-7989
Gossamer Web Design
135 Alpine Meadows Road #22
Olympic Valley, California 96146
Located midway between Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows and Tahoe City
It could save
you thousands of dollars!
Some Lake Tahoe portal websites have switched their focus
to advertising revenue. In order to save costs, they have
forsaken keeping their site's information up to date in
favor of low cost linking schemes. This strategy is risky at
best.
It is best to avoid any portal site that
utilizes "framed" links for your website. 
Let's face it, when it comes time to
drive more traffic to your website, your phone can ring off the
wall with offers. Many, too good to be true. You will want to
focus your ad dollars wisely to augment a long term strategy to
optimize your website's content for the best "organic" results.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! There is
strength in numbers for some "organic" search engine results.
These sites rank well, in part, because they contain numerous
pages covering some geographic or general services concern.
