As a business owner in Toronto looking to leverage the power of the web to grew your business you need to learn more about the available channels, in this post I will list the most popular channels and then expand on each of them separately:
- Organic search engines results
- Paid search engine results (Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter, Yahoo search marketing)
- Local web channels (Google Local, Local business directories such as Yellowpages or Canpages)
- Social media sites
- Banner ads
- Email Marketing
Before continuing with this I am including a photo to demonstrate some of the online marketing channels in one screen:
1- Organic Search engine results:
When you search in major search engines, Google for instance, the results in the left area beneath the sponsored ads which shown in blue in the picture above or organic, you do not need to pay Google to show up here, however ranking well in this area for meaningful keyword requires to have search engine friendly site and quality inbound links, the process of improving your ranking in this area called “Search Engine Optimization”
2- Paid Search Engine Results:
All major search engines have paid inclusion program (shown in red in our photo), you will pay only when your ad is clicked. All major search engines have a user friendly backend to manage your ads or you can hire PPC (Pay Per Click) management company to do that for you
3- Local Web Channel
All search major search engines have now local search, they even started to show the local results (shown in blue) at the top of the organic results. Old media such as YellowPages has now web products where you can promote your business, there are other important channels like review sites; Yelp.ca is an example where people can review businesses.
Local search is becoming a very important that you need to make sure your business is represented well at.
4- Social Media Sites:
FaceBook, Twitter, Linkedin and many other social media sites are becoming day by day important marketing channel, it is all about coverage, the web spectrum is quite wide you need to make sure that you are represented in most popular mediums. The process of marketing your website on social media channels called “Social Media Marketing”.
5- Banner Ads:
This is one of the oldest online marketing channels that is still working fine, find a high traffic website that is related to your business check if they are offering ads or of they are a part of an ad network.
6- Email Marketing:
Email marketing is still an effective channel however the old days where you could send an email to millions of people without opting them in is gone, you still can do email marketing through a third party that has an opt in list, either ways make sure that you have a forum mail subscription on your site, so by the time you can have your own opt in mail list.
