do online business, should I pay for online paid advertising?

[pandacover]

I do a small online business. But i found it is very difficult to develop it. :(

From entities shop to online shop, i found i spend too much time on online shop.
In my entities shop, i only need to employ one people, purchase items for sale, responsible for audit work at end of per month. It seems pretty easy.

Problem on my online business. I can not find a way to get orders online. I do not know how to let more and more people know my online shop.

one of my friend told me to advertise online.
If i pay for online paid advertising, the effect how?

Do small business, is there a better way to do online business?
(i have a online shop now. but nearly no customer!)

[vangogh]

It sounds like you need to market your site better. There's no simple recipe to follow, but the basic idea is to determine who are the people who are likely to buy from you. These are your potential customers. Then you have to figure out where to reach them. Are there websites they typically visit? Do they read the same magazines?

Once you've decided where they are you need to build a presence or brand in front of them. If you think your customers spend time at one forum you'd want to become a member of that forum and answer their questions. If they read the same magazine you'd probably want to advertise in that magazine. In addition to being where they are you want to show them why they should buy from you instead of someone else.

Advertising is one way to reach people and you can create your ad in a way that helps convince people to buy from you. The first step is figuring out who will likely become a customer and then how do you reach those people.

What have you tried so far to let people know about your site?

[billbenson]

I'll also add, do you look at your online statistics? That's a way to see who is visiting you, how long they stay on the site etc.

Advertising can be expensive if you don't do it right. It can be great if you do it right.