Once you have your professionally designed site up and running, What then? - The goal behind any great website is to create a clear, concise message to your customer in a visually appealing way, and then connect it to your customers by marketing your website on the internet so they can find it.

This section is devoted to helping you connect with your customers through online marketing.

On the surface, internet marketing is using the internet to promote products or services. There are a lot of different types of marketing and all have their advantages and disadvantages, so we will look in depth at what makes online marketing such an attractive first choice for every size company.

First, consider the sheer size of the internet. There are hundreds of millions of users conducting billions of searches each month. These users are looking for answers, products, and services. With an internet marketing strategy, you can put your business out there as a solution to some of those questions and searches. But how can you get ahead of everyone else to be one of the first options?

That's where New Era Technologies can help. We combine on-site search engine optimization with off-site internet marketing strategies to increase your website's relevance for your industry's keywords. Why do we focus on the search engines? The answer is in the questions.

Internet users use search engines to "search" for what they need. Websites like Google and Yahoo are the first place internet users go when they need to find something. Actually, over 70% of all internet searches are done on these two sites. If you focus on these search engines, then you capture almost 3/4 of the search queries that can bring potential customers to your site.

There are two ways to market your website online. One is using paid advertising campaigns and the other is using a search engine marketing campaign to get to the top of the natural search results. There are pros and cons to both methods.

The chart at left is a representation of the cost and benefit analysis of paid advertising vs natural search engine marketing. In the beginning, the cost of a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign is higher and the benefits are lower. This is because an SEM campaign can take several months to realize its potential. You are not buying a ranking in the search engines, but you are creating content and promoting the site across the internet. The end result is a website that is high in relevance for your industry keywords, so it naturally comes up on the first page of Google or Yahoo. This is more of a long term approach that pays for itself over time.

With paid marketing, the performance is higher in the beginning, and the cost is lower. As you can see, the performance and the cost stay linear, so you don't see decreases in cost or increases in performance. You do get almost immediate improvement, but the improvement is marginal and stays incrementally the same as long as you continue to pay for the advertising. Depending on your needs, one solution may be right for you over another, but for long term benefit and ROI, the natural search engine marketing campaigns always outperform paid advertising. Look at the next illustration below. In this illustration, visitor clicks on a page are represented by the red "X's". The color coding from Red (hot) through Grey (cool) serve to illustrate where on the page, and thus the results from the visitors search resulted in the majority of click-through traffic going on to top tier websites. The hottest spots on the Google search results page are all in the area of the natural search results. The first five results obtain most of the traffic. You can also see there is a Sponsored Links column to the right which is the area for paid advertising. There are some clicks there, but not near as much as in the natural search results.

	This chart shows this in a cleaner example of the click through percentage averages of the results on a typical Google search results page. The top spot can get above 50% of the traffic, and the top five listings get almost 90% of the traffic from search queries. As these numbers clearly indicate. Optimizing your site to appear in the top tier search results can have a profound effect on the number of potential customers who land on your site. Simply building a "nice" website isn't enough.
Think of it this way... You own and operate a remote restaurant. We'll call it "The BoonDocks". You serve the best country cooking in four states. The problem is, your restaurant is down a dirt road 15 miles from the nearest large town. While Word of Mouth and a Loyal customer base is important, it won't take BoonDocks to the next level. That's where NET steps in. Introducing your restaurant to potential customers through an interactive website, along with an effective Internet Marketing plan can generate a buzz about "Boondocks" that will have people driving miles, happy to stand in line just to get in and taste your "World Famous" Country Fried Pickles...
The chart below takes this a step further and shows the behavior of internet users who search beyond the first page of a search result. Only 28% of internet users go to a second or third search results page, but this is still important. As your search engine marketing campaign begins to mature, you will start to see increases in traffic once your site climbs to the second and third pages of the search results. Over time, your site will reach the first page where the largest gains in traffic are found.

As these illustrations show, there are obviously significant advantages to achieving high search engine rankings on Google and Yahoo. Unfortunately this doesn't happen overnight. It takes dedicated attention and effort to increase a websites standing within the search results. Fortunately for You and Your business, New Era Technologies takes care of all of this for you as part of our ongoing customer service solution. This allows you to sit back, and do what you do best...Manage your Increased business New Era Technologies will ensure that when it comes to your "Fried Pickles" People won't just accidentally bump into them. They'll actually be led through the "Boondocks" in search of them.