One of the things that many beginning e-commerce entrepreneurs fail to consider is the need for advertising. Although this is a daunting proposition, in some ways those advertising on the Internet have it easier than those who are advertising in print. For the price of a classified ad running for a couple of weeks in a well-recognized newspaper, one can have certain essential services performed. Now comes the problem of choosing the entity to perform those services. Where do you find one that is both reputable and knowledgeable, who can deliver on their promises? I have been searching and testing, and have found a new source that I'm going to try.
Discount Click Online Marketing Service offers internet marketing solutions. I read over their terms of service and it looks like they will work with adult businesses, which is good for me since the main site I am currently promoting is my online adult superstore. Still, I sent an email to confirm that they would actually work with me to promote this website. At this point I thought that it would be well for the company to create an FAQ page to answer questions such as this for customers in plain English rather than the eye-blurring legalese of a terms and conditions page.
I filled out an easy, free registration form because I think I may try Discount Click in the not too distant future. I then proceeded to price their services.
First, Discount Click offers search engine optimization services ranging in price from $50 to $2000 non-recurring fees or the self-service SEO tracking and tool kit for a $50 per month recurring fee. A warning for the neophyte online entrepreneur: make sure you can edit your own page before ordering search engine optimization services. I learned the hard way when I contracted a different advertising company to do search engine optimization (which I had confused with advertising) for me and ended up eating $179 because I do not have page editing capabilities. The web hosting company's web designers are the only ones who can do that for my storefront. Search Engine Optimization is NOT the same as advertising although it can help with advertising. If you can edit your own pages, Discount Click can help with this in a variety of ways. Still, in the future I may be able to use Discount Click's Self Service SEO tracking and tools because they manage tracking and keyword optimization of multiple sites for one price. This service costs $100 per month and has a one-time $50 setup fee and looks like something I'll consider using in the future.
The second service that Discount Click offers is email list management opt-in delivery services for a $50 per month fee. If you have a large list of email clients you may want to consider this service. I currently do not have an opt-in email list but if I did, having someone else manage the mailings sounds like a service I could use.
Discount Click then offers advertising services. This seems to fall mostly in the realm of banner advertising. Their graphic arts department can design a banner for your site for $50. And for $100 per month you can receive their ongoing banner advertising services which includes 200,000 ads served including tracking and reporting. Although I have heard negative things about banner advertising, 200,000 ads sounds pretty good. Personally, I will click an eye-catching banner and find out what it's all about and I tend to think of banners as the billboards of the Internet. So this too is a service that I will consider once I find out a little more.
The services sound enticing and the site is professionally designed and well written. However, a little more clarity for the neophyte entrepreneur would be desireable and I hope that Discount Click will consider adding an FAQ page designed for SEO and online advertising newbies.
