A corporate website became a necessary part of the total marketing strategy of a company, an effective tool for the products' advancement on the markets. A corporate site has an important function of establishing a corporate identity. Well-made web page has a lot of advantages but can't make a miracle.
Today analysts observe how advertising budgets are "overflowing" the Internet. This international tendency is reasonable. By January, 2009 the quantity of Internet users had exceeded one billion persons, as the company "comScore" informs. The biggest part of the users lives in China - 179 million persons. The USA is the second country by quantity of users, with more than 163 million users of a network. In Russia almost 30 million persons use the Internet resources. The number of Ukrainian users is about 7.7 million, Belarusian is equal to 3 million.
The qualitative corporate site creation is initial but not unique issue to the Internet marketing. The questions, such as "why our corporate website isn't popular" or "why only a few people visit our site", are set even by well-made web sites owners.
The problem is:
A small company wants to operate online better to hold existing and attract new clients in the B2B (business to business) sector. Its advertising budget is limited and company can't afford high cost and long-term advertising campaign. A name of a company and its brands aren't widespread. For example, you let out the woodworking machinery, well-known only within a narrow circle of consumers.
The company has a standard corporate site, which answers the basic questions that visitors may have such as:
Where is this company from?
What does the company do?
What are the company's products or services?
How can I get in contact with the company? How do I get to their office?
Which other clients does the company have?
The main sections of the site consist of: "About Us", "Contact Us", "Our Products/Our services", "Our clients" and so on. It is possible to add special service such as: "Online order", "Searching" etc.
From the marketing point of view, such site is competent. Why doesn't it work well?
Corporate site is not a God / not all-powerful
The first reason is company name.
The traffic to the corporate website can be close to zero because of company name. The visitors can "find" your website by typing an address directly in browser. For well-known brands and the most popular web pages it isn't a problem gm.com, sony.com. These sites have enough number of daily visitors. But what if your corporate site address is woodmanufacturer.cz?
The second reason is absence of registration in searching sites.
Searching systems are the main source of visitors to the corporate sites. Site advancement consists of its registration in such systems and electronic catalogues so that typed in the search line «electrical equipment and supplies», user gets on your page.
This easy way of initial advancement, sometimes for free, after 2 or 3 months work might provide from 15 to 150 visits. However it is not enough and sometimes even 150 visitors are not effective.
The various ways turn to complex services for promotion of sites and products: paid registration on the most popular searching sites, contextual advertising, banners, which urgency to specialized resources (and in your case it is important) increases. Banner cost depends on many factors: size, quantity of displays for a particular period of time, its placing on the site and its attendance.
An effective using of the Internet possibilities:
How to, number 1: purchase a place in a list of results. Everything is simple - the first place belongs to the site which has paid more than others.
How to, number 2: purchase targeting displays in the searching sites, then an information blog or banner will be shown in the searching system after corresponding inquiries. As an example, after the inquiry "order an office furniture" a user will see an information blog about the company-manufacturer or supplier of corresponding goods on the main page.
How to, number 3: The profile forums connected with the firm activities. With the message or a post it is necessary to specify your corporate Internet address. But you should visit such forums and write the posts regularly because old messages go down and almost nobody would see them.
How to, number 4: mutual exchange of advertising banners, then on your corporate site advertising banners will display in exchange for your banners displaying (taking into account the commission fees). There is a doubt about banner exchange system effectiveness.
Ask yourself, do you really need somebody's blinking banners on your company website, which can slow down the loading of the page and can spoil corporate design? And in the end you can "receive" less than 0.5 visiting per day.
The main thing is to understand exactly which audience you want to target.
How to, number "the best":
If your company's goods and services are business oriented is there any sense to spend a budget for placing banners on the sites where overwhelming number of users are persons who are not interested in wholesale purchasing?
Diversified electronic trading platforms or electronic marketplaces can not only increase a number of visits to your website but also can help to find new business partners from all over the World. Electronic marketplace http://tradedeals.biz has an attendance from many countries, such as: Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, CIS (Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc.), China, India and others. Additionally such visitors can get on your corporate website purposefully by corresponding inquiries or from the electronic catalogue headings. Registration in such platforms is free and sections are differentiated by goods categories, services, buyers and sellers. It is possible to add all necessary contacts, including the address of a corporate site to description of the offered product. Electronic trading platform in business to business sector is a good alternative to the banner advertising oriented on a wide range of consumers.
If you are sure that you can "advance" your site independently and that corporate site for your company is more than enough, we wish you good luck. But it is better to pay more attention to professional trading platforms which know how to make your business effective. However, be cautious with offers like «we will provide one thousand visitors per one hour». There are no miracles in the business.
