There are plenty of advantages of online marketing over traditional marketing. As a search marketing specialist who manages hundreds of clients on a daily basis, many companies have adopted a holistic approach when it comes to promoting their business. For small to medium businesses, taking their businesses online really is a critical step in branching out their business.

Let’s take one of my friends’ company as an example. He owns a pest control company that conducts termite and other pest treatment. After using SEO services for just over a month, he is starting to see results already – the website’s organic traffic has increased by 30 percent and sales have gone up by 10 percent already. SEO has really taken the company to the next level. From their business point of view, there is really not much effectiveness to advertise on magazines or TV because pest or bed bug control is not something that people would normally need in a regular basis, unlike skin care or hair products. In other words, if your readers are not going to use your service anytime soon, chances are they will forget about you just in a snap. So why even bother to promote your business there?

When someone puts in a keyword on search engines, he or she already has an intent of using your product or services, meaning that your target audience is much more focused already compared to the readers of magazines or newspapers. If you appear at a top-ranking position, there is a high chance that users will arrive at your website. Of course, whether the visit or inquiry actually turns into a sales depends on a lot more outside factors, such as your site’s design and usability, but you have reached the first step already getting more leads through the internet.

With the example above, you can see why online marketing has more advantages over traditional means – it is more targeted and measurable. You can look at behaviour of each user and arrive at conclusions about your website’s usability and content. It takes many rounds of testings to fine-tune your website and it is a consistent effort to be made. Moreover, if you do SEO in-house like my friend does, it practically costs nothing because search engines do not charge you for optimizing your website. For small businesses who have very limited budget on promotion, online marketing, specifically SEO, is definitely the way to go.

Of course, with the above being said, marketing strategies should really depend on your business nature. Some businesses such as beauty products rely heavily on print ads because there is a large basis of target audience among female readers. However, like many other businesses, they have taken their marketing efforts to the internet as well to capture audience effectively.

Mini storage in Hong Kong has exploded over the past ten years. Traditional marketing methods such as radio and magazines are no longer as effective as they were once – customers are becoming smarter and instead of relying what an advertisement tells them, they demand useful, legitimate information before they make a purchase decision. The competitive market landscape has driven these companies to the online world for new marketing strategies.

If you go online and search for mini storage, you will find that most of these companies are using SEO services. SEO stands for search engine optimization; it refers to the process of enhancing the visibility of websites on search engines. You may find yourself wondering why I know they are using SEO services – it is rather simple to find out. If you look at their meta titles and description, you can sniff out a clue or two; they are usually filled with relevant keywords and their length are limited to 153 characters. With SEO, companies’ website content is also optimized with the right amount of length and relevant keywords. The key here is to make it as natural as possible instead of simply spamming your site with keywords that you find relevant. In recent years, Google has developed a series of rules and algorithms to punish spammers whose website rankings will suffer. In order to rank higher on search engines, you website has to become a trusted, legitimate source of information that can actually benefit users.

Another common strategy used by these companies is paid search. Different from SEO, you have to pay search engines such as Google and Yahoo an amount of advertising fees for placing your ad at the top positions above organic search results. Regardless of your website’s level of trust and legitimacy, you can outrank any of your competitors as long as you are willing to pay more. When a customer clicks on your ad, you only pay for what that specific keyword is worth. The price range of keywords differs, depending on how competitive your industries are and how much you are willing to pay to outbid your competitors. Compared to SEO, paid search costs a lot more money in the long run because the cost of clicks are becoming increasingly expensive. But if you need quick results and traffic, paid search is the way to go.

Many mini storage businesses have adopted the above two marketing strategies to stand out from the crowd. Traditionally when we think of SEO, we think of it is an IT-related industry. But with the gradual transformation and development of search engines, it has become as content-driven as ever. Of course, technical IT skills are also very much alive and important to the entire process, but the value of content is key to many successful cases of SEO.

Easy and fun. These two words make a fairly accurate description for many online shoppers. These days you can sell just about anything online and people will find and buy them. Here are three reasons why e-commerce has exploded over the years.

First, like I said earlier, it is fun and simple. For a procrastinator like me who has got nothing better to do, I like going online and look at pretty clothes and shoes and eventually make my wallet suffer. You add an item to shopping cart and choose your payment and shipping option, and bam you are done under five minutes. Making a trip to the store can be quite a bit of a hassle sometimes; it takes forever for you to look and finally pick out something that you like. And don’t forget the long lines outside the fitting rooms especially on the weekends. Whereas in the online shopping world, even if you do not like the shirt or dress you ordered, you can always ship it back and return it for free, which takes about ten minutes in the mailroom to finish the entire process. You do the math.

Secondly, you can find rare products in the online world. Let’s say you’re looking to buy handmade necklaces for your unique, exotic outfit, you probably would not know where to look in the mall because all you can think of are the big brand names that sell regular, basic-looking accessories. Small-time boutique stores with specialized offerings can really stand out on the internet as an option if its website has enough exposure on search engines and is easy to find. Alternatively, simply go to e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon and you can easily find sellers who are offering what you are looking for. The internet has made it so much easier for consumers to find any products these days, saving us a great deal of time and effort compared to traditional brick and mortar shopping.

Finally, from a seller’s point of view, e-commerce is nothing but convenient and cost-effective. You can have your store up and running twenty four hours a day anywhere in the world, breaking all the barriers to maximize your revenue. It allows you to measure results easily and constantly fine-tune your sales approach with tools like Google Analytics that helps stores owners analyze users’ decision-making behavior online these days. It helps you understand and target your audience much better.

Next time you want to buy handmade earrings online and are a bit hesitant, remember that they might not be easy to find after all in the mall. Save yourself some time with your computer and internet and I assure you will score a pretty pair to go with your outfit.