Marketplaces

I often find myself saying to clients 'You can either try and get the market to come to you or you can go to the market'.

SEO, Pay Per Click, Pay Per Impression, Affiliate Programs, Partner programs and Email marketing are all about getting the market to come to you but is it always worth the effort?

If, for example, you wanted to sell your car you would take some photos and put it on the best known portals in your country. You wouldn't make a website about your car and then try and find ways of getting people to visit your site and yet that is the approach many people take when creating a website.

They invest heavily in the sites without really thinking this principle through.

There are online platforms for all sorts of products (physical and virtual) and services. It is well worth investigating these either to work with your website ... or instead of it.

Here are just a few examples if you are selling products:

• Amazon - a portal of 'everything' that rewards sellers with the best service, not the lowest price. You only pay if you sell.
• Ebay - a small listing fee and a commission fee if you sell.
• Facebook Marketplace
• Etsy - a portal for the more unusual, non mass produced products.
• Not On The High Street - UK based private portal/shop for unusual products.
• Hard to Find - Australian version of Not On The High Street.

This is just a tip of the iceberg. To find the right online market places for you is a case of tracking down where your competitors are. A farmer goes to a fruit and veg market, not one where everyone is selling antiques!

If its an online service you are selling then again there are platforms like Upwork, freelancer and Fiverr.

If you have a bricks and morter business where making people in the area aware of what you offer is the key to your success then time spent finding the directories people use to find your competition (such as Google Business, Foursquare, Yellow Pages) and creating excellent listings there might yield instant and more effective results than SEO.