Traffic, Online Leads and Sales

Advertising platforms that rely on print and other old school media systems are quickly becoming irrelevant. The new school business model of digital marketing is faster, cheaper, and far more effective. A newspaper was traditionally the best way to get the word out on your business. The world has quickly become more digital and many traditional advertising formats like newspapers are either moving online or going out of business. Customers have even begun turning away from television programming at astonishing rates. Big news programs on CNN and NBC that used to have 50 million viewers per night are down to 2-3 million in some cases. Likewise, phonebooks have basically died and companies like Yellow Pages and Dex have been scrambling to reinvent themselves. Business owners who turn to social media will find similar problems building a strong presence due to constant changes. Myspace was once the crown jewel of social media and then suddenly died following the introduction of Facebook. Facebook was once easy for the business set up and reach potential customers, but now Facebook controls and regulates who your messages get seen by. In order to reach more than 1-2% of your audience business owners must pay for advertisements in an attempt to force their message out to their fans. Facebook is still a major player, but they have gone to a “pay to play” business model making it much harder to get your message across. The truth is all different forms of advertising come and go, but Google search rankings are here to stay. Recent articles have talked about the new Google Ad Words changes that will devastate organic search. These articles are misleading because every study shows that people avoid Google Ads over 95% of the time. The fact is no matter what changes Google makes the general public has already been trained and program to go straight for the organic listings. That’s why we recommend putting the bulk of your advertising budget into natural rankings to receive the best ROI. The other benefit to organic rankings is after you are ranked in the top position, you don’t have to keep paying to receive leads. If you are using a PPC (pay per click) or other paid traffic method the leads stop the moment you stop paying for the service. If you have a long-term vision for your company then improving your website’s rankings is the best course of action.