Website Marketing Royal Oak MI

Dear StartupNation: Our competition advertises in the Yellow Pages. But I think my newer business can be more tech savvy, so we look to our website as a crucial means of building sales. I’d like to try online advertising to get a jump. What do you suggest?

Those sounds you hear out there are the collective footsteps of thousands, nay, millions of small business owners turning to online ads to help drive business. And the method they are turning to most is centered on paid ads that accompany search engine results.

Internet search advertising can help small business owners “level the playing field” with much larger competitors. It's a website marketing strategy many startups are using it to drive growth, and entrepreneurs love it because it is results and ROI are so easy to measure.

The trend is clear. For one thing, consumers are not letting fraud concerns stop them from shopping online, says a recent A.C. Nielsen survey. Results from the survey, commissioned by eBay, indicate that consumers plan to buy more online this year and that most believe the web is a safer place to shop than it was a year ago.

At the same time, the spread of broadband connections and other technology improvements are giving the internet advertising market a boost, with paid search engine advertising (also known as keyword advertising) via Google and Yahoo's service stealing the spotlight.

And small businesses — especially those that already have websites — are showing a marked preference.

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