How to market your haulage firm on the web
With literally hundreds of thousands of individuals now on the internet, in a few short years, the Internet has become a mainstream promotional method for countless numbers of enterprises. There are loads of people out there searching for your haulage business every day. World wide web Marketing is the activity that will make sure they locate you - and this article is the ideal starting point for advertising your haulage company online.
If you don’t yet have a website for your haulage firm then that’s the first job on the To Do list. It is possible to promote yourself online without a website - but why make things difficult? You could employ a local company to build a website for you - (be certain to contact other firms they’ve done work for, to check they’re happy), or even build it yourself from the start (all the information you will need is readily available online). Alternatively, you could put up a job on an freelancing website like Rent-a-Coder - that can be a good way to get a website built.
The next task is to deploy Google Analytics. This will tell you how many users your website is receiving, where they’re arriving from, and how much time they’re spending on your website. You can even use it to keep an eye on your advertising campaigns, and understand what people are purchasing on your website. Essential!
The first step for most people is to send their website to the appropriate category on the Yahoo Directory. Unfortunately this now costs $299 per year, and since it sends very little traffic these days (have you tried locating the Yahoo directory on their site) it may not be good value for money for most companies. Thankfully there are also free general directories available, and it’s normally worth submitting to those. DMOZ is one of the most popular, but since it’s operated by volunteers it can take a very long time to get in. Be certain that you submit your website to the appropriate category for the best probability of being successful.
haulage business web sites that will list your details will often charge you money - but those that have reasonable visitor numbers and can send a lot of traffic to your site, it would be money well spent. Every so often you can find a free site that specialises in your industry - e.g. http://www.ClickHaulage.co.uk/ for the haulage company sector.
Assuming you need to get traffic to your new haulage company website quickly, then you’ll want to take a look at PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. As its name suggests this is a method of advertising on the internet but only having to pay when somebody clicks through to your site. The number one PPC system currently around is Google Adwords. Adwords lets you appear on Google itself - next to the search results. You can make sure that your ads only appear in a certain country (such as the UK) if you prefer - and needless to say choose how much money you’re willing to pay out for every click.
One of the most important tasks to do next, is to build an email list, by persuading your site visitors to enter their email address and permission to mail them. Use a service like ConstantContact - which for a modest monthly fee will let you store email addresses of loads of potential customers and email them whenever you fancy.
Advertising your haulage business online is a big subject - but I really hope the overview offered in this document has been valuable. If it’s inspired you to find out more, then that’s fantastic - there’s lots more detail available on the web, so if you get underway right now, you’ll be hearing from new prospects very soon indeed.