The internet is literally like having the world at one’s fingertips. It gives families an inexpensive way to stay in touch through e-mail and instant messaging, helps students cram for finals and write last-minute papers long after the library has closed, and gives even the smallest business a chance to reach a global market.
Let’s pretend you own a small novelty store in a rural town in the Midwest. Most of your merchandise is made up of handmade trinkets and crafts created by local residents, sold on commission, so the upfront cost of most of your inventory is minimal. Business is slow during the winter months, but during tourist season, you turn a tidy profit. One day, as a Chicago tourist buys a photo of the late afternoon sun glinting off a herd of sleeping cattle, she mentions that she wishes you had a website so she could buy quaint Christmas gifts for her family. As she leaves the store, her wrapped photograph tucked under her arm, you find yourself staring at your computer.
The internet could be an inexpensive way to increase your profit margin. You already have your physical business; a website would simply be an addition. You look around at all the pretty knickknacks arranged throughout the store. If you expanded your business to include a website, you could sell Midwestern trinkets all over the world. It would not take that much time. You have a friend who would design the site and teach you how to manage it for free. You could answer questions during the slow hours when you are not doing much anyway. It would be a win-win situation.
In theory, you are correct. A website could be a lucrative addition to your business.
It is possible to design a website, register a domain name, and submit it to a website. But what happens next? Just like your physical shop, the website will not do any business if there is no traffic. No one will visit your online store if they do not know it exists.
There is a good chance your regular customers will check out your website. The people who made the items you feature will probably tell their friends and families about it, too. But they may not buy anything. Why would they pay for shipping and handling when they can drive a few miles and purchase it directly from you? Your tourist customers might buy from your online store, but only if they know about it. And since you probably waited until the slow season to create your website, it could be months before you can tell them.
You could look into search engine optimization.
You might also want to consider something called pay-per-click.
Pay-per-click is a search engine model that bases its rankings on something called a bid position. A website owner bids for a higher position in the rankings when a certain keyword is typed into the search bar. The higher the bid, the higher the ranking.
Businesses that use pay-per-click often prefer it to natural search engine optimization because it is an easy, efficient way to improve a site’s ranking and increase its traffic. Pay-per-click also lets webmasters maintain control over the search engine campaign.
People who forgo pay-per-click in favor of natural search engine optimization say that the cost of pay-per-click is too high.
