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Setting up a net presence in Singapore

Advertising
Advertising is all about telling others about you and/or your products/services. But with so many advertising medium around, which do you choose? I have complied a simple list for your reference.

Traditional
Here are the more traditional methods of advertisement. Some of these methods are pretty costly though but if you do it well, the results can pay off. Traditional methods of advertising is still a more trusted source than online advertising, which means readers are more likely to respond to your advertisement.
- Print media. Newspaper/Magazine Advertisements or in Yellowpages like directories books. Advertise your site in the newapaper or magazines can range from tens of dollars in the classified section to several thousand dollars on the first page. However, this is perhaps the most cost effective advertising for a small business without the big budget.
- Flyers/Brochures. Print out flyers and brochures and distribute them. very low cost and can be very targeted. But this type of advertisements are usually limited to the retail sector but there are other types of business which can benefit from this.
- TV/Radio. I am pretty sure you saw quite a few websites advertisements on TV during the last few years. I believe that TV adverts would be more effective that radio advertisements. But of course, there is a price difference. Having said all that, I am sure for a small businesses, TV and radio advertisements would be out of your budget.
- Outdoor Advertisements, like billboards, Bus Ads, even just an advertisement on your own company van. Ranging from several thousand dollars to free(the banner is on your company van), it can be quite effective. If you look around Singapore, you can see this type of advertisement is very common and is often practised.
- Namecards. A very low cost way of advertising. Just drop your namecards at restaurants, cafes and even letterboxes. Give away namecards whenever possible. However, do not expect great results from this as they are un-targeted and lacks product/service information.
- Direct Mail. Advertise through the mail. You can also distribute flyers through the mail as well. Just hire someone to go around flats or other estates and slot in the flyers in the letterboxes. However, you have to note that HDB flats now have a secured letterbox in place, which only the mailman can open.

Online
Online advertising is the "in" thing these days and they are here to stay. But in all seriousness, online advertising is probably more cost effective than traditional methods of advertising. I am saying this in general. The cost for online advertising is much lower than that for other forms of advertisements.
- Pay Per Click. Pay Per Click (PPC) is getting very popular now as an online advertisement medium. Advertisers only pay if your ads are clicked. These systems are usually targeted and low cost. They are in the forms of text ads, banner ads and so on. However, some PPCs systems (like Google's Adwords) is complicated and confusing at times and may not get you the results if you don't implement it properly and eventually waste all your money. But this method is the most effective of all online advertisements if you plan your PPC campaign correctly. Just like Search Engine Optimization, it's all about keywords popularity (not surprising that a lot of Search Engines provide these type of advertising).
There are also regional PPCs which is based locally and catered especially to local clients. These are even more targeted and could get you good results.
Google Adwords
Clicksor
- Banner ad. Simple, create a banner and pay someone to put it on their webpage. Costs depends on their popularity and number of visitors. However these types of banner system usually don't have any way to monitor the clicks and are charged a flat rate (per mth or per year). Effectiveness is dependent on the site content so choose a website related to your product or service.
- Ebay/Yahoo or other auctions.A surprisingly good way to advertise is through Auction sites. These sites are getting more and more popular as net-savy internet users start to make use of auctions to buy and sell their products. Some auction sites like Ebay even allow businesses to "setup shop". In small country like Singapore, it is much easier to meet and transactions can be done in person. Just place your products on auction sites. But some auction sites also require a small fee for you to be listed as a trusted seller, if you are getting a lot of traffic from auction sites, I would recommend you to go for it. It gives your buyers a sense of peace when they bid. The downside for this type of advertisement is that you need to take the time and effort to monitor your auction(s).
Ebay Singapore
Yahoo Singapore Auctions
- Online classifieds. Another cheap way to advertise online is through online classifieds. There are a lot of free classified sites for Singapore businesses to advertise their products and services. Usually they only require you to get a account (free) and start posting ads. Some classifieds sites would charge a fee for advertisers to become a "trusted" seller, but it is up to you to see whether it is worth it.
Yahoo Singapore Classifieds
Singapore Classified Online
- E-mail Advertising. Another very low cost advertisement medium. Create a advertisement and then just send to your customers. But please do opt-in email marketing instead of spamming (sending emails to others who don't want to receive it). You will get better results this way. Ensure that your advertisement has an option to opt-out as well. Email advertising is all about presentation and how attractive it can be to catch your reader's eye, but you have to be sure that the recipent can view your emails properly. Users using Outlook Express and other email clients may block images, so your email must always have text to tell them about your latest offers or services. You can also use HTML formated email advertisements, which can support text and readable by a lot of email clients.
Again I have to warn you about the backlash of spamming. You can get negative response from your recipents instead which can hurt your reputation.
- Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate marketing is like asking someone to sell your products/services for you. Take for example, your site is selling watches, what better way to promote your products than by having a watch hobbist website do it for you? So your product links are in the watch hobbist website(who is now your affiliate) and the visitors are mainly watch hobbists, what do you get? Targeted audience! These watch hobbist will more likely respond well to your advertisement.

These are some of the advertising mediums you can choose from to help you advertise for your website or business.

SEO is the best way to drive traffic to your site. It is cost effective as well. I would also recommend even the beginner webmaster to use some form of basic SEO on their website. You can follow the above tips to help you get started on your webpage.

With all that being said, I need to tell you that SEO is seriously more an art than science. Even SEO experts don't have all the answers. Even engineers in the Search Engines don't have all the answers. So I think it is better to go slow and just start basic and if there is a problem with your rankings, find out why and correct it. It takes time to get good results from SEO. And please be patient.

- Basics in setting up an Internet presence.
- Choose the correct webhost
- Why getting listed on business (niche) directories will benefit your business
- Your business site is not getting to first Page of Search Engines? No worries.