Can Ecommerce Sites be Successful without Pay per Click?

by Tam Nguyen

I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but therewere in fact quite a few flourishing and thriving websites before Google Adwords. I have an ominous feeling; I might be burned at the stake after thisarticle.

For those you out there who don't know: PPC or "Pay Per Click" refers to text-basedmarketing, where companies/webmasters get charged by the click whenever asurfer clicks on their paid ads. Searchrankings are usually based on bidding prices. These are usually designated onthe engines as "sponsored listings". Companies can bid on keywords or even whole phrases ranging from .50cents to $50. Daily budgets can reached into the thousands of dollars. Even ifyou are not paying $50 a click for a visitor to your website, you needto realize that you are charged for every click, whether or not that surferends up buying your product or signs up for a newsletter. I don't know about you, but in this recessionI don't know how this could be a sound business decision.

We stop all PPC campaigns including shopping engines at thebeginning of the New Year, but unlike other New Year's resolution, we actuallysaw this one through. And like a smokerthat has quit for six months, I couldn't feel better and happier.

There are plenty of other free and inexpensive EcommerceMarketing strategies a company can employ rather than having to use PPC. Here a few examples that we have implemented overthe last PPC-free month:

• Affiliate Marketing
• SEO Optimization
• Blog Marketing
• Social Networking - FaceBook, Twitter
• Sponsorships
• Multichannel Selling - Amazon, eBay

A good knowledge of web marketing can make any of thesetools work for you. However, true success will not be reached until thebusiness owner stops looking at their company and their product, and focuses onthe customer. Internet marketing is allwell and good for any ecommerce site, but none of these matters if you don'ttake of your customers.