Webmasters struggle everyday with the question of how they should advertise their website. There are so many advertising venues; it is hard to know which is the right venue or the right combination of advertising venues.
The answer to this question is actually simple. The right venues are the ones that allow you to earn enough sales from the placement of your advertisement to make a profit. Your advertisement should earn more money for you than it cost for you to buy the advertisement.
Choose Your Words Carefully
“If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind – give it more thought.” — Dennis Roth
With advertising of any type, you must learn to choose your words carefully.
Most online advertising is in the form of a classified ad. With a newspaper, you can choose any size of advertisement to communicate your message to readers. The newspaper charges you based on the number of words in your classified ad.
Online, you don’t get the option of buying additional words. Instead, you buy an ad, and the publisher tells you how many words or characters you are allowed to use in your advertisement.
Here is how the different search advertising options break down:
ExactSeek.com through the ISEDN.org network:
Headline Length: 30 characters
Description: 100 characters
Google Adwords through Google.com:
Headline Length: 25 characters
Description first line: 35 characters
Description second line: 35 characters
Overture.com through the Yahoo network:
Headline Length: 40 characters
Description: 190 characters
As you can see from these numbers, you generally do not have that much space to tell your story so you need to select words that best tell your story, using as few words as possible.
Most products or services cannot be sold in just a few words so your goal should be to get people to your website and let your website do the selling.
On your website, you can tell your story in the way it needs to be told. Your website can also answer all of the questions that the reader might have about your products or services.
Choosing The Right Formula For Your Advertising
In your own mind, you might think that people need to know all of your credentials. But, advertising should not be viewed as a “brag fest”. People do not care what you have done; they only care about what you can do for them.
So tell them how you can help them and give them a reason to visit your website for more information.
If you understand why your customers buy your products and services, then you can answer their questions and help them solve any problem they might have.
If you can solve their problems, they will buy what you are selling.
Pre-Qualify Your Visitors
If you are engaged in PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, you definitely need to pre-qualify your visitors in your advertising. Why pay for people to visit your website if they are not likely to buy what you are selling?
If you are engaged in selling wholesale products to retailers, why would you want to pay for visitors people whose sole intention is to buy one of what you are selling at retail prices? You wouldn’t, would you?
Provide enough detail in your advertisement to help people make an informed judgement as to whether you can actually help them accomplish what they want to accomplish.
Give your prospect enough information to skip your advertisement, if he or she will not benefit from your offer.
Even if you are using other types of advertising like pay-for-inclusion, you will still want to pre-qualify your visitors, because if you don’t, it will skew your website conversion numbers. Too many unqualified visitors to your website might give you the erroneous idea that your sales copy is not performing as well as it should.
Use Power Words In Your Advertising
“Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in a few words.” — Aprocrypha
Copywriters are always talking about “power words” or “power phrases”. These are word combinations that influence the reader to take an action.
One example of using power words in your copy is to substitute the word “children” for the word “kids”. Parents are more influenced by the reference to children than they are by the reference to kids.
“Guaranteed” is another power word. It gives your reader an added incentive to buy what you are selling. Prospects take comfort in the idea that if they discover later that they have made a bad decision, they can always get their money back.
“Proven” is another power word. It tells your reader that you can back up what you are saying with “proof”. Your prospect can see “scientific” or empirical “evidence” that you are telling the “truth”. These are more power words for the person who is paying attention.
Power words attract attention, spur reader curiosity and compel readers to take the action that you want them to take.
Pay More Attention To Your Headline
The 25 to 40 characters that are available to you for your headline are the most important part of your advertisement, hands down.
On most websites, the headline is in bold print. The truth is your prospect will not see your description at all, if their attention is not captured first by your headline.
“Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.” — William Penn
Test and Track Your Results
If you do not take the time or effort to track your advertising, you will never know what is, or is not, working for you.
Set up different landing pages for your ads to determine which ads are producing results and which ads are failing to deliver on their promise.
This one step will save you more money than you can imagine. It will allow you to dump the dogs and build upon your successes.
Shades Of Gray
Ad tracking will enable you to pinpoint the effect of the slightest changes in wording and presentation.
Changing one word in your headline or description could make the difference between selling one unit and selling 500 units, but without a tracking system that might never be apparent.
Let’s compare two headlines:
* Read Our Wealth Tips,
* Read Our Wealth Secrets.
Which of these two headlines is more compelling to you?
Do you see how much of a difference one word can make in your copy?
Play around with your copy to find text that is more likely to compel your reader to visit your website.
The words you use in your copy can make all of the difference in the world.
Stand Above Your Competition
The PPC advertising companies are going to hate me for telling you this, but you don’t need top placement in their search advertising results, if your ad is written better than the ads of your competitors.
The company with the most compelling headline is going to draw the attention of the reader. It’s not uncommon for the advertisement in position five or six to get the click because of a compelling headline and an attention grabbing description.
Fortunately for you, most of your competitors probably do not understand how to write an effective advertisement. This will allow you to quickly jump to the head of the class without spending more money for those higher spots in the PPC bidding process.
Start Small and Take Care With Your Advertising Budget
When you are testing new advertising copy, you should start small. You don’t want to spend $1 a click in a pay-per-click advertising venue, using an advertisement that hasn’t been tested or proven successful. To do otherwise is a waste of valuable resources.
Google Adwords ( http://adwords.google.com ) and Yahoo’s Overture ( http://www.overture.com ) systems both require you to start your bidding at five cents a click.
At http://www.7search.com , you can buy advertising for as little as one cent per click.
At http://www.ExactSeek.com, the founding member of the ISEDN (http://www.ISEDN.org), you can build an ad around a specific keyword phrase for as little as $12 per quarter or $36 per year. Your ad is then displayed through more than 200 ISEDN member websites.
After You Have Mastered The Art Of Advertising…
After you have mastered the art and science of advertising, you will learn the most important lesson of all.
All venues can produce exceptional results, if you have written a compelling and effective advertisement.
When you write effective advertising copy, you will be able to convert anyone’s traffic into sales.
Editor’s Note: This article previously published here.
…
If you want to learn how to make article marketing effective and profitable for the promotion of your online business, you will be able to locate several article marketing training guides at http://WritingPuzzle.com/ If you are looking for an article syndication service company to help you promote your online articles, explore http://thephantomwriters.com/ which has been providing article marketing services since 2001. Bill Platt is the owner of both of these web properties.
Read more articles written by Bill Platt
Related posts:
- New Venue For Advertisement – Taxi Receipts
When businesses begin evaluating marketing strategies, many start with basic print or television advertisements. The importance of choosing the proper medium can be the difference between a successful, effective campaign and a campaign which flops. With all the types of advertising out in the world today, every company is looking... - Write Winning Headlines While You Sleep?
Want to get an extra 6-8 hours of productivity every day? Then try this little trick… Every night before you go to sleep, ask for an idea. For instance, if you are writing an advertisement, say to yourself… I really need an idea for this headline. And then forget about... - Article Marketing Secret: How To Identify and Write For Your Target Market
Many people question as to what topic they should choose to write their articles… Fortunately, the short answer is simple… Write articles that appeal to your target market. But what does that mean exactly? I always pose this set of three questions, when I am talking to clients about what... - Four Tips For Creating An Effective Authors’ Resource Box
In article marketing, there are many factors that will affect your articles’ ability to promote your website in the most effective manner. In this article, we will briefly discuss a couple those factors, before we dive into how to create an effective Authors’ Resource Box, also known as the About... - Write a Book and Catapult Your Company to New Heights by Branding Yourself As an Expert
Taming the recessionary tiger is not as difficult as you think. Forget the old patterns of spending big bucks to buy advertising or blast postal mailings to thousands of possible buyers. The dollars aren’t there to spend in a broken economy. Today every penny has to count, and that happens... - How To Inspire Yourself To Write Articles Others Will Want To Read
Anyone engaged in writing articles for offline publications or online business has occasionally struggled with the question of “What to write?” Methods To Help The Average Person To Start Writing Maybe I am just an overly optimistic person. I have always believed that anyone committed to writing an article can... - Business Advertising and Branding: What Online Tools Are Effective?
Marketing has always been an essential element of business – both back in the day when brick and mortar stores and mail order businesses were the only options and now that the internet has become so central to so many people’s lives. Business advertising – along with many businesses as... - How to Write a Lead-Generating White Paper for a Medical Device
Unlike other products, a medical device presents special challenges to a white paper writer. For example, writing methods that effectively sell DVD players are ineffective for selling MRI machines to hospitals. Why? Because a medical device directly interacts with human bodies, and therefore gives rise to risks of injury. Actually,... - Effective Business Writing Tips for Professionals
Effective business writing skills can help you win that million dollar contract, earn a promotion, resolve a dispute, or generate a significant increase in new business leads. Poor business writing, on the other hand, can never be undone; it can cause you to lose business to your competition and even... - My Super-Effective Article Writing Formula
Here’s the formula that I use to quickly write informative articles that get results. For many of the articles that I write my goal is to get visitors to a website where they take some action related to the topic of the article. Often the action that they take is... - How to Write a Resume – Simple and Complex at the Same Time
Learning how to write a resume is something nearly everyone learns how to do at one point or another. Whether it be in class, reading a book, or by mimicking someone else’s efforts, it’s something that everyone has done at least once in their lives; that is, if they’ve ever... - 5 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Want more effective communication skills? Here are five effective communication skills tips to remember: (1) Apply ALL the tools of communication — not just the words. Your image and the way you are seen by others, your attitude, posture and tone of voice all combine to communicate for you. Some... - Try This Cost-Free Way To Roam The Globe And Write About It
Ah, joy. The cushy life of a travel writer. Off to glamorous places. Air fare paid. No cost for accommodations. Treated royally. Paid handsomely for all this “suffering.” That’s the dream, but unfortunately, it’s a bit of a misconception as well. But that shouldn’t stop you. Travel is a major... - Effective Use Of Colors In Web Designing
Effectively Using Colors on the Web As with any printed work or structural design, the primary purpose of (virtually) all web pages is to convey some kind of information or feeling to others. It is not surprising, then, that color should play an important role in how well this is... - Sincerity: the ‘Secret Sauce’ for Effective Marketing
A couple years ago, I was talking with someone who was, for me, a very challenging client. I’m all about cultivating relationships that result in opportunities to sell. This particular client seemed allergic to cultivating relationships for reasons I never really understood. I remember one such meeting, I was trying...