Internet
Advertising
You may wish to
include some internet advertising on your small business web site. Some
key points to consider:
1) the big internet
advertising agencies are looking for large high traffic sites (i.e.:
not a typical small business), so you are unlikely to be able to get
anything other than untargeted adverts that pay per click through
2) the click through
rate for this kind of advertising will probably be 1% or less, and pay
around 10p per click.
3) it could reduce
the impact and quality of your own site, particularly if the advertising
is largely irrelevant.
For these reasons
we suggest that you do not bother with general advertising. However
for certain sites we suggest you might make use of affiliate programmes.
This approach allows you to select discrete merchants to promote, or
even discrete products. This can be reasonably effective at providing
an additional revenue stream if complementary to your site.
For example: if
you sell fishing tackle you could promote affiliate programmes that
sell: guide books and maps (though Amazon),
fishing magazines, hotel accomodation or outdoor clothing. You can find
out more about such programmes at UK Affiliate Programmes.
You might also consider
personally arranging more adhoc arrangements to advertise a business
that is complementary to your own, e.g.: guest house could advertise
a local taxi service.
The key point with
any such adverts is that they should not divert you or your users from
the primary purpose of your website.
