Display advertising has been around for well over a decade and is available to all small- and medium-sized businesses. Display in many ways is much like print and television marketing - it is primarily used to build brand awareness. However, the difference is that display is a form of online advertising that is placed as banner ads on websites. A display ad encourages the online consumer to click on the ad, which then brings them to a webpage where they can make a purchase or connect with the advertiser. Consider these three reasons to begin using display advertising to promote your business:

Reason #1:  If you don't consider investing now, your competition will!

A recent Search Engine Land article, discussed the eMarketer chart below. Search spending is on pace to almost double in the U.S. by 2016, but display spend is forecast to almost triple. If this chart were to extend out to 2020, there’s no doubt (based on current market conditions) that advertisers will be spending even more on display by that time. Now is the time to start utilizing display advertising because if your competition isn't, they will be soon.

Reason #2: Display advertising is a brand marketing digital strategy.

Why? Because display offers exponentially more impressions than search marketing and display gives advertisers multiple chances to reach consumers who were not in the "buying stage" of the sales cycle. Display is designed to drive brand awareness and increase targeted traffic to virtually any geography and consumer preference. An example would be a display advertising campaign that targeted vacationers from the New England states with banner ads in highly viewed financial digital properties of the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Targeted search terms these consumers recently searched would be Finger Lakes wineries, Finger Lakes property rentals, etc. 

Reason #3: Display advertising enhances your search engine optimization initiatives.

Successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns rely on search engine algorithms to determine the "authority" of an advertiser website based on keywords. Driving targeted, qualified traffic from links from websites the search engines deem "relevant" to those keywords increases the potential of increasing the position in the search engine results page (SERP). In other words, display advertising can help improve your organic search ranking.

Research shows that display advertising increases website traffic and an added benefit is that display marketing can be tailored to meet the needs of your business. You have the flexibility of marketing to a broad Internet audience or to a smaller geographical or niche market for more targeted results thus increasing your marketing ROI. Display is an online marketing tool that can have big payoffs for small businesses.