Shopping on the World Wide Web - What is the easiest way?
One of the most frustrating things about trying to shop online is the copious amounts of useless information delivered through search engines. Don’t get me wrong, search engines are great at what they do – index pages; but what about people who are looking to buy or sell goods online? How does someone who has gone to the effort of designing a classy website get noticed in the World Wide Web? And how does someone effectively use the internet to purchase goods?
In the simplest terms, getting noticed on the web is achieved through either
1. Paid Advertising – The most common form of paid online advertising is using PPC (better known as Pay-per-click) campaigns. Without doubt, these are the most effective form of targeted advertising, but they are also one of the most expensive options. In the pay-per-click scenario, you are bidding against other online advertises for certain keywords. Generally, the higher you bid on a particular keyword or phrase (relevant to your business), the higher your ranking will be in relation to other advertisers and the better the positioning of your advert. Google also takes into consideration the quality of your advert, with better performing ads (% of users who see the ad that actually click through) being rewarded by better positioning.
2. Free Advertising (organic) – Obviously the most economical option, but the problem with this form of advertising, is that getting noticed amongst the millions of other advertises is close to impossible; well not impossible, but extremely difficult. There have been complete books written on SEO (search engine optimization), detailing the best possible way to get your site ranked higher in Google, Yahoo and others, but the truth of the matter is, no-one knows exactly how to get your site at the top of the search engines.
Herein lays the problem; if sellers find it too difficult or expensive to advertise their products, there’s a good chance buyers will spend hours searching for their items and probably give up.
I believe the secret to making shopping online easy is to bring shoppers and merchants together in the one place. A marketplace created for the sole purpose of buying and selling – nothing else. OK, so you might be saying, these things aren’t new, virtual malls have been around for years; correct, but most virtual malls try to do too much and end up overcomplicated the process. For example, many malls have built in shopping carts and price comparison utilities, but what about the value-added services that a business may provide? What about the level of customer service? What about the after-sales service? The point is; you cannot draw conclusions about businesses based solely on price.
The truth of the matter is; you need to provide a portal or directory for maximum effect. Let the customer “see for themselves” what a business is like by providing a link to their website. If that is not enough, why not add a customer feedback and/or rating system to each business listing? Add in a search facility and you have the fastest and most convenient method of selling online. In addition, customers will be provided with a fast, easy, and convenient method of finding exactly what they need.
About Author
John Greenfield (
easy2find.com.au) completed a degree (with merit) in physics back in 1994. Since then he has been extensively involved in e-commerce and online business strategy.
Source: ArticleTrader.com