eCommerce is the act of buying and/or selling on the internet. It used to be something that was reserved for the "techies," but now it is used by everyone. Sites such as Amazon.com or eBay.com sell thousands of items daily. The biggest difference between mammoth sites like the ones mentioned above and the every day common business website is marketing. When you say Amazon, most people associate that with Amazon.com. Amazon.com has marketed themselves in a way that many people have found them. This is key to online businesses. Without being found, your amazing website is just like a poster being pinned to the wall backwards. No matter how great that poster is, if no one can see it, it is absolutely useless.
There are many different ways to market on the web. Most people find products and services by looking on what is called a search engine. This being the case, doesn't it make sense to market your company on those search engines? The answer to that question is "Absolutely." There are a few ways to market yourself to search engines such as Search Engine Optimization, good site content, and other things along those lines. To learn more about Search Engine Optimization, visit http://www.webdrafter.com.
In addition to the methods mentioned above, there is also paid advertising on search engines. Right now, the largest paid advertising campaign is run by Google.com, which the also the most popular search engine in the world. This campaign is called Google AdWords.
Many people are already familiar with Google's Adwords. This is a service by Google where they display your ads on their search results pages and if someone clicks an ad, you pay Google a set amount of money. This works great because your ads get out there and people see them, and you only actually pay for each click on an ad. If no one clicks on an ad on a certain day, the cost of your marketing for that day is $0. With Adwords, you can set a certain amount of money each day that will be used to pay Google when someone clicks on your ad. When that money is all used up, the ads will no longer be displayed. This is nice because you can budget yourself wisely.
Google is not the only search engine out there, though. Bing is an up and coming search engine brought to you by Microsoft. Microsoft is the technological giant that brings the Windows Operating System and the Xbox 360 gaming console. You may have seen ads for Bing on television depicting how it is a "decision" engine and how it's links are better organized than Google's. Bing is working it's way up and gaining more and more market share every day.
Microsoft's Bing search engine has what is simply called Search Advertising. This is much like Adwords. In fact, aside from the ads being on Bing.com instead of Google.com, it is the same thing. Search Advertising provides the same capabilities as Google Adwords: pay per click, daily spending limit, etc. This is quite useful as Bing.com is quickly gaining more and more market share.
At the end of the day it just makes sense to have your ads being displayed on the two most prominent search engines. This helps you to be found faster and universally. If you just advertise with Google.com, you will not hit any customers who use Bing.com, which could be your largest demographic. Inversely, if you only advertise on Bing.com, you are missing out on advertising on the world's largest search engine. As the old adage goes, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." It's smart in this case, to not put all your advertising in one browser.
