At the last count, there were over 180 million websites online. This figure was calculated close to the end of 2008. That equates to a lot of competition, no matter what niche your own website falls into.

It was also estimated that some 1.5 billion people were using the internet by that time. If you think in terms of potential customers or clients, your market online is clearly a big one. With figures this large being bandied about, it is not surprising that some people only promote their website online.

But let us put this into context. The total population of the world is over 6.5 billion people. This means that according to the latest figures, the percentage of people who are using the internet is less than 24%.

That means there are over three times as many people who may be interested in what you have to sell who are not online.

Reaching out to offline markets

People can access the internet in many ways. They are not restricted to using a computer in their home. They can access one at work or at their local library, for example. This means it is worth promoting your website offline.

And not everyone who uses the internet will find your website in this way. How many times has someone recommended a website to you by word of mouth? It pays to get your website address in front of as many people as possible, regardless of whether they are online or off when they see it.

Make sure all your offline correspondence has your website address on it. Have business cards printed with it on, as well as other items such as letterheads if you use them. Some methods are more complex and take more time than others, but often people simply forget that there are more ways to find people than hopping onto Google.

Staying alert for opportunities

Many people think of the online and offline worlds as being two separate entities. But they are connected by the very people who use them both. Your website should be optimised to receive visitors online through web promotion. But it should also welcome those who rarely go online.

You are missing a trick if you only seek an online audience for your wares. You need to be sure your website promotion reaches out in all kinds of different ways.

Don’t get stuck in a rut and stick to the same methods of bringing in new customers. Of course you should stick with those that work, but explore what works for others too. You can get far more visitors than those you reach out and find through your computer screen.

Remember that everyone online is looking for information. But people are largely driven by information offline too. If you can convince them your site contains the information they need, it won’t matter whether you find them online or offline.

So focus on who you want to reach – and explore all the offline opportunities there are to find them.

There is no doubting that shopping on the internet has become one of the main ways that many people buy what they need. Recent years have seen nothing short of a continued explosion of internet shopping.

As such it is interesting to look ahead and speculate on what the situation might be like in years to come. At the moment the recession is making high streets and shopping centres all over the world look in a very sorry state. Some shops have closed down already, and there is little doubt that there is more to come.

The internet, meanwhile, seems to have been better able to weather this particular storm. Of course some businesses indulge in web marketing as well as having proper stores in our local areas.

But could it be that in the future they survive purely as an online concern? Could it actually happen that a lot of struggling businesses will go online to cut their overheads and extend a lifeline to keep them going?

It’s a tempting thought. After all it’s better to have a different business than no business at all.

But it’s about more than just the current situation. People’s attitudes to shopping online are changing too. Several years ago people were more sceptical of buying things online than they are now. People are naturally going to be wary of anything new and alien, and that’s exactly what online shopping used to be. But that isn’t really the case any more. And that is why online sales have continued to be healthy.

So could it really happen that in years to come we see more online shopping taking place and less shops in the high street?

If we do it won’t be a situation which occurs in the near future. It’s not so much the case of internet shopping developing and becoming more popular, because that is happening now. It’s more the case of us simply not needing our local shops and stores any more, and that isn’t likely to happen.

We love the convenience of hopping online and being bombarded by all the web marketing before we make our purchases – ready to be delivered direct to our door. But we also love the convenience of being able to walk out of our front doors to stroll five minutes up the road and pick up what we need right away.

Perhaps we will eventually see the end of huge department style stores, and a return to smaller shops. Perhaps only the bare essentials will be available to buy in our high streets. Because as the whole shopping experience develops and grows into the future, it must grow according to our own need and desires. And if we prefer buying online rather than buying from the shops, then those shops will die off as a result.

It might seem hard to believe, but perhaps in years to come we will look back and remember the days when we had more choices in our high streets.

Many people appreciate the efficient, clean design of a good website. Even if you don’t consciously sit there and silently congratulate the designer on a job well done, you will still appreciate the hard work that has gone into it. You will do this through the continued exploration of that site, as you easily move from one page to the next, exploring all there is to offer from this reliable and professional company that you have found.

You will also no doubt be able to recall what you have done on the occasions where your surfing has led you to a sub-standard website. How do you feel when you find a site that is selling exactly what you want but their site design looks so amateur you hesitate in buying from them?

It’s frustrating and tempting all at the same time – and that is the reason why it’s worth spending money on a web designer. It’s one of the most important parts of web marketing, because your website is going to be online right across the world every minute of every day. You can’t afford for it to be sub-standard.

So if you are having trouble justifying the cost of a good web designer, you should shift your focus to the end result you will get. Compare that to what you would have if you tried to create a website yourself, or attempted to cut corners in any way. In the end, it is the final result that you need to think about. The more sales you want to make, the more money you should be prepared to invest up front to give the right impression.

If you are still struggling with the idea of spending money on a web designer, try putting yourself back into the position of visiting other peoples’ websites. You may be well aware that you are trustworthy and able to fulfil all the orders that come your way but the fact is that your customers do not know you. They don’t know that you won’t just disappear with their money and not send their order. You have to convince them of that – and having a professional website design is the first step towards doing that.

Of course a good website designer will also know a lot about search engine optimization and other important topics. SEO is essential to you getting found online and the right web design can be the difference between a top 100 ranking and a first page ranking. All these elements to help you position yourself higher up the search results will be integrated for you by a good designer. If you were going to create your own website, not only would it take longer but these important elements would probably not be anywhere near as well done either.

So think carefully if you are in the market for a new website. Where do you want to be in a year from now? Do you want to be struggling with a website that doesn’t look the part? Or do you want to have a website that is professional, efficient and bringing in more orders than you thought it would?

Everywhere you look at the moment there is news of the recession. This is no longer a possibility, nor even an event that is somewhere in the future. It is a hard fact that we can no longer deny.

But how does it affect the internet? Are those businesses that are involved in online marketing in danger of going the same way as many bricks and mortar businesses?

There will be mixed views on this. Some think that there are internet businesses that are already in danger of having major problems. Others think that internet businesses are well placed to ride out the problems and simply wait until things get better again.

But one thing is certain. Just because a business is established online, that doesn’t mean it is immune from all the problems that are currently happening. While we can expect internet advertising to reduce, this is pretty much always the first thing to happen in a situation like this. Even though advertising is what brings the customers in, businesses always see it as the first way to cut spending.

The consensus seems to be that the internet will indeed go into a recession, much as the ‘real world’ of shopping and business will. But the difference will be that the internet will not suffer to anywhere near the same degree.

The outcome also depends on how each individual business is set up in the first place. For example, some internet businesses are run by individuals. These people often get started on a shoestring budget – and sometimes nothing at all. As such they don’t have any business loans to worry about covering, and they can therefore afford to cut back on certain things. They have more freedom to continue with their web promotion, taking advantage of a market where fewer businesses are continuing to advertise heavily.

It’s clearly going to be different for those businesses that have large outgoings anyway. In short, the larger the outgoings are, the more careful you need to be about ensuring your business survives into the future.

Of course it would be daft to think that the internet is not going to change as a result of the recession. It is affecting too many countries and too many people to remain isolated. The real question is perhaps which businesses will find it harder than others. And we can expect the bigger ones with the larger outgoings to fall into that group.

So will this mean the smaller businesses run from home stand a chance of actually improving and developing as a result of the recession? It could well happen. In the end it all depends on the knowledge and resourcefulness of whoever is at the helm.

It is clearly a time to take a long look at your own business if you have one though. Decisions you make now could have an effect long into the future – and you may well be able to take advantage of these trying times as a result.

PPC or pay per click advertising has been touted by many as being the way in which they have made a lot of money online. But does that mean it is suitable for everyone? And is it really still worth doing anyway, or has it seen its best days already?

This is an intriguing question anyway, but especially so considering that the economy is far from at its best at the moment. Whatever you think of it, PPC costs money – and every cent we spend has to be carefully evaluated at present to ensure we are going to get a good return from it. With less people out there spending less money, it could easily turn into an expensive mistake.

One thing you need to be aware of is that different people approach their PPC campaigns in different ways. Some of them like to control the whole thing themselves. Others hire an outside company to do it all for them, using their knowledge and expertise to gain what often turn out to be better results.

Of course there are certain forms of online marketing that can be done for very little cost at all. We can reasonably expect these to receive a boost during hard times, so there is no reason to suspect that it will be any different at the moment. It makes sense to look at what is working and what isn’t, though, because there is little logic in continuing with something that effectively involves throwing money away. In the same sense, if your existing PPC campaign is creating a profit (i.e. bringing in more money than you are spending on it) then I cannot see why it should ever be stopped.

However that is just scratching the surface of what is going on here. There are plenty of marketers out there who will tell you that this form of advertising is very definitely still worthwhile – provided you are doing it right. There are thousands of people who think that PPC advertising is a quick and easy way to make money. And of course we know that this isn’t the case. It takes knowledge and skill to get the best results from pay per click, and that means you must make every effort to ensure you keep an eye on what is going on.

A campaign that previously did well and is now dying on its feet does not mean that pay per click is not working any more. It means you need to change what you are doing. And if that means hiring a company to get the best possible results for your needs, then that could mean the difference between success and failure.

In truth, pay per click advertising still works very well for those who apply their knowledge and experience to it to get the results they want. It is not (and it has never been) a ‘set it up and forget it’ type of strategy. Markets change, people change and requirements change all the time.

So if you think that PPC isn’t worth bothering with any more, perhaps it would pay you well to think about whether you have changed with the market or not. If you haven’t, you should take a fresh look at this form of advertising.

As time goes on, more and more of us become more open to buying online. Even people who were very resistant to it are now jumping in and giving it a go.

But will there ever come a day when ecommerce becomes the main way that we all make our purchases?

Despite the fact that internet shopping has become more popular as time has gone by, it’s a long jump from that to it becoming the main way to shop. Some would argue that the future of buying is here already, since so many of us do use the internet for buying whatever it is we need.

But even though internet marketing is attracting our attention like never before, is it really in a position to take the top spot against more traditional shopping?

When it comes down to it there are certain things that we would simply go out and buy, rather than getting them online. The one factor which does become a problem in many cases is postage. Depending on the item we don’t always like to pay postage when we buy online. But having said that there are companies which don’t impose a postage charge – and they must experience a higher volume of orders as a result.

So how else can the high streets compete when they go up against the internet? After all, we know already that price can be an area in which the internet often wins, thanks to the lower overheads. Where can the high streets step ahead of online shopping?

One clear area is that of speed. However fast the ordering process is online, the fastest you can expect to take delivery of an order would be overnight. If you are in a real hurry for something then you can go to your local shops to buy it. That can take less than an hour depending on where those shops are.

You can see the problem. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves whether ecommerce can be an equal with high street shopping, rather than taking over from it entirely. We can certainly expect to see the landscape of our high streets changing in the future. The recession could affect that situation as well. It could be that smaller shops survive, while larger ones run into more trouble.

In the end we really have to wait and see whether the continued online website promotion tactics work in pulling in a higher percentage of customers. Ecommerce undoubtedly has a much better future ahead of it, but whether it is capable of becoming the main source through which we buy things remains to be seen. It has plus points to recommend it, but then so do bricks and mortar businesses. So in order to offer the best array of buying choices and options, we can expect both types of business to remain and develop long into the future.

The question is, will they ever be complete equals – or will one always have the upper hand?

You cannot fail to have noticed that the worldwide recession is now in full flow. Everyone knows that recessions come and go, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with the effects it has while it’s here.

But while we all watch bricks and mortar businesses struggling to cope and trying not to go under, what has happened to the internet businesses?

In terms of the recession itself it is still early days, so we won’t know the full effects until some time in the future. But there is every reason for us to suspect that online businesses will suffer less than offline ones. This is mainly because people expect more of a bargain online.

Of course, every problem has a solution and many businesses actually make things worse for themselves. This is because they automatically cut down on advertising, as they think of this as being a cost they could do without. And what happens when they do that? Fewer people know about their business and they end up taking less money as a result – which leaves them more open to vulnerability.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why online marketing is well worth doing. When you think about it, it is a lot more versatile and usually much cheaper than advertising elsewhere. And when it comes to things like search engine optimization, some aspects of it can be done without any cost whatsoever.

One clear advantage that online businesses have is that they have far less in the way of costs than traditional bricks and mortar businesses have. For example, it is a lot cheaper to keep a website up and running than it is to keep a shop open, no matter where it might be situated. That means you do have a far better profit margin than you would in a shop, and you can afford to lower your prices slightly (or even quite a lot) if you need to.

It is clearly this versatility that puts the internet ahead of the streets when it comes to shopping. That is why it is much better placed to weather the effects of a recession than the more mainstream shops are.

But in the end it is down to the individual in charge of each business to determine to a certain extent how that business fares. Some online businesses will probably not even realise that there is a recession, while others will no doubt fall by the wayside. It is clear though that because of the environment they exist in, internet businesses have a better chance of lasting the course and getting through the recession in one piece.

The recession has also resulted in more people going online to find better bargains than they can get in the high streets however. This action alone could result in a much less bumpy ride for the internet businesses – and a much bleaker future for the high streets.

It will be interesting to see who is left standing at the end of the day.

There is no doubt that advertising on the internet is as popular as ever. From businesses run from home by one person, to huge multinational businesses with concerns in many countries, online advertising is big news.

But why does it continue to be so popular? The amount of online advertising being placed in various quarters is still rising, but why should this be the case?

Well there are many reasons for this to happen, but the first word that jumps to mind is this – versatility. There are so many ways to promote your business online that it really doesn’t matter what you sell or who you are trying to sell it to. It seems as if the whole world and his wife are online and looking for something, and so long as you know where to find them there are big business opportunities for you to develop whatever business you are running.

There was a time when advertising offline by way of posters, small classified ads and magazines was the way ahead. But the major forms of advertising that would reach the most people – otherwise known as promoting your business on TV or radio – were too expensive for many businesses to try.

That isn’t the case when you get online. Online marketing is far more accessible for everyone, and it doesn’t matter what kind of budget you have either. From the fledgling internet business with just a few dollars to spare, to the multinational business with a million dollar budget to spend, all are welcome here.

We simply didn’t have this kind of opportunity before the internet came along. Just imagine how hard it would have been to start a self publishing business offering eBooks before we could go online. The answer would be ‘virtually impossible’. But now things are very different – and that is why the number of people who are online and promoting their wares will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. It’s simply too good a chance to pass up.

And of course you can advertise for free as well. Social marketing and search engine optimization can be done for nothing, provided you know what you are doing. And even if you start with no knowledge at all the learning process is nothing short of fascinating.

It’s also possible to reach your desired audience very easily online. A TV advert would reach a group of people who watch a certain program, but within that audience there is still a wide spread of people. But once you go online you can more accurately pinpoint who it is you want to reach. It’s no wonder that advertising is continuing to rise when it comes to the internet.

It also has to be said that many people are not yet taking full advantage of what they can do online. But as time goes on and more people do discover the extent that online advertising can go to, we can expect more people to use this as their primary way of reaching out to their desired audience.

Whenever anyone says anything about the recession, we instantly think of bad news. But when it comes to the internet, does that same bad news apply?

It’s an interesting situation, because many online businesses are run by one man bands. The site you buy an eBook from might be run by one person, who is organising things from their kitchen table. When everything is run through a website, you only have the facade of that website to go by. And if it has been designed by a professional then you cannot rely on that to tell you how many people are running that particular business.

But it could be true that these small online businesses are in the best position to benefit from the recession. Our buying habits have changed over the past few years anyway. More and more of us are becoming more trusting about buying things online and using our credit cards to do so. And in the current climate we are trying to make our money stretch further, so we are naturally looking to where the lowest prices are going to be. That of course is generally online.

Of course this doesn’t mean that you could decide to go into internet marketing and be an overnight success. It still takes hard work and perseverance to succeed online, just as it always has. But if there is more of a market than there used to be, you can expect to find more people to sell your wares to.

The truth is that if you take a look in your local shops, you will no doubt see that many of them are emptier now than they would normally be. But we haven’t noticed too much of a change to the online situation. Some companies may have experienced less upward movement of late, but not to the extent where they need to shut down because they are no longer making money.

Of course, one distinct advantage that the internet has over the high street is information. People go online to learn and to discover new things. If you can sell information in some form, then you will certainly stand a better chance of setting up a successful business.

It is also the case that many people have become financially independent thanks to going online and setting up a business. And these people are unlikely to be affected too much by the recession. What’s more there is a very big group of people out there who would like nothing better than to join them in the world of online marketing.

If you can appeal to this group of people you can surely expect the group to get bigger. This will happen as people seek a solution for escaping from the worst effects of the recession.

In the end, everyone wants to earn more money. And the best place to do that is online – especially during times like these. Could that mean a business opportunity is beckoning for you?

PageRank – we’ve all heard of it and we know it’s got something to do with Google, but what exactly is it?

Put simply, it is one of the ways that Google works out the value of a web page. In other words, the PageRank of each one of your web pages will help to determine where each page will appear in relevant search results.

It basically has a lot to do with inbound links to each web page and the quality of the content on that page. You will no doubt be aware of the need to have as many links coming into your site (and its individual pages) as possible, since this increases the chances of it showing up in relevant results.

But the importance of each link is also relevant, and this is a big part of what goes towards a site’s PageRank. Generally, a page with one hundred incoming links to it carries more weight than one that only has a couple. But perhaps not surprisingly there is more to it than that.

Some people will think about this particular part of PageRank and work at getting as many links as they can – no matter how good or bad they are. But Google has made sure that the better links have more importance than the dubious ones. That means if you can get an inbound link from a reputable site, it will be likely to do you a lot of good as a result.

The way it works is fairly logical. If a website has a PageRank of 5, and it links to 10 other pages, the PageRank value of 5 is divided in some way (depending on content, anchor text, location on the page, etc) and gives value to each of the other 10 pages. So you can see that a link from a page with a higher PageRank is far better than one with a low PageRank, or no PageRank at all. Similarly, a link from a site with too many outgoing links, despite a high PageRank, may not be as valuable as a link from a medium PageRank with only a few outgoing links, because more actual value is received if there are only a few outgoing links to share with.

Now, we all know that if you have an internet marketing business you will want to get as much publicity and promotion as possible. And climbing up the search engine rankings will certainly get you more traffic as a result. But if you focus solely on linking to get a higher PageRank you will consequently be missing out on a lot of other important factors.

PageRank is certainly not the only thing that determines your search engine rankings. If you put together a sub-standard site with plenty of links you still aren’t going to rank highly. This is because you need to remember that Google looks at a number of things to figure out where each site should be in the results. Search engine optimization, for example, is just as important, if not more. If you are neglecting keywords in order to get those inbound links created then you are going to be missing out on a lot of benefits.

In short, while PageRank has its place in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t the be all and end all of getting your site seen. In fact, there have been examples demonstrating that it isn’t as important as it was in the past. So pay attention to it and know what your own ranking is, but don’t treat a high PageRank as the Holy Grail. As long as you cover all angles, you will see results.