Starting out in internet marketing can be very frustrating, but with a little knowledge about it you can be marketing your business with the best of them. In a way its just like running a business, you just need to know what pieces fit where. Put together all the right pieces and win the internet marketing game!
Without a road map or idea on what pieces that you need, its very easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the dark. I have created this article to help beginner internet marketers find the light at the end of the tunnel. Be rest assured that everyone started out in internet marketing like you and I. If they can do it, so can you. You just need to start, its that simple!
Internet marketing rule #1: Put a lot of thought and time into researching the market that you want to attract. A little time in the beginning will save you a lot of time in the long run.
Be conscious of who your trying to attract to your business. Keep in mind who the premium market is. Get in the mind of that market. How do they live? How do they go about their day? What is the level of their education? Answering these types of questions will assist you in defining the premium market.
What other markets does your premium market fit into? A great low cost way to get targeted following to your website is to find other websites that your market participates in and ask the webmasters of those websites what it would take to put your ads in their website.
Sometimes you can get free advertising by trading advertising with sites related to your market. Negotiate with them, pitch them opportunity. Bargain your way to marketing success!
Internet marketing rule #2: Build the foundation to your internet presence with onpage search engine optimization
Onpage optimization involves making sure that the content on your websites pages are totally unique to the pages that the content is on. It also entails other coding factors to ensure that the site is up to industry standards. There are several other factors that help your sites content get indexed in the search engines. For more detailed information about onpage SEO look for my other articles that talk more about it.
Properly optimizing your website can make or break your website’s effectiveness in the search engines rankings. A lot of website designers do not offer seo services when they are designing websites.
If you have a website and these terms sound foreign to you, then your website probably has not been properly optimized. Be sure to ask your web designer if your site has been optimized.
Internet marketing rule #3: Build the structure of your internet presence with backlinks
While onpage optimization is the biggest element towards your websites rankings in the search engines, building backlinks to your website is nearly just as important.
Building backlinks is simple, the process involves signing up for numerous sites related to your niche and participating in those site’s. The trick to building backlinks is to insert your links where ever possible, but doing it in such a way that it doesn’t appear as spam to the sites takes a little practice.
Just by signing up for sites you will then be allowed to place links back to your website within the profile pages of the sites that you are signing up with, giving you a really quick free backlink within every site that you sign up with.
One of the most effective ways to get backlinks is to provide quality “how to” educational material on your website. Once your website has some quality content, you can look for other websites, blogs and social media sites that are discussing the topics that your website pages have information on. When you find people that are discussing topics that your website has information about you can then insert your comments with links back to your helpful educational material on your websites pages.
Creating backlinks this way attracts the market that is most interested in topics related to your services or products. Within the “how to” educational pages you can then provide links to other quality helpful material or products and services that can help the viewer.
This is by far the most effective way to attract the premium market to your website, all the while keeping the sales funnel completely transparent.
Every backlink that you create is like another vote to your website. In addition, every person that you get back to your website is like a vote, the links that they click on when they are in your website is like another vote and every second that they stay adds another vote.
In short, getting traffic that doesn’t read your content, click on your links or engage your pages can actually look like spam to the search engines.
Internet marketing rule #4: People are online doing research. Provide the information that they are researching and that information will be found!
When in doubt, provide useful material to your market. When creating this content try and keep it specific to a limited amount of topics. If the search engines come across your pages and many of the pages have the same content, then they will only index the pages that seem most valid.
I like to use Google’s keyword tool when I write articles or pages for my websites to insure that I did not miss any of the keyword strings that I am trying to target. A good rule of thumb for content on your websites, blogs or article directories is 300-500 words.
Internet marketing rule #5: Make sure that you have created a sitemap for your website.
Search engines allow you to submit a sitemap to them. Submitting a sitemap to them is sure to get your website indexed and ranked immediately. If you do not know if you have a sitemap or if a sitemap has been submitted to the search engines then ask your web designer. When you get your sitemap be sure to submit it to the top three search engines; Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Internet marketing rule #6: Keep track of your progress with Google Analytics
Google Analytics is website tracking software that is offered for free by Google. You simply install a small piece of code within your site and everything is tracked, from visitors, what pages that they are clicking on, how long they are staying and many other statistics.
Google Analytics is great! It helps you keep track of what internet advertising is working, and which advertising is not working. A must for any serious internet marketer!
Internet marketing rule #7: New website? Go big with advertising until you can establish your client base and website presence.
Many options exist in the form of paid advertising. The most dominate is Google’s AdWords. AdWords is (PPC) pay per click advertising, in which the business owner sets a specific amount of money that they would like to pay for each visitor to their website.
PPC advertising has proven to be very effective, but it can also be very costly. It is advised to start off slow with small amounts that your willing to pay for clicks, then gradually work your way up to higher amounts as you learn the AdWords system.
Effective use of AdWords takes a lot of keyword research and practice. So, don’t expect significant results in the beginning unless you have a big advertising budget. One possibility is to hand your campaign to an AdWords management company, or possibly an AdWords consulting firm to help you learn how to use AdWords.
A small investment of time and money in the beginning can save you costly mistakes in the long run.
Internet marketing rule #8: Social media. Build relationships and new clients along the way.
Facebook has just topped 500 million registered users. The numbers alone are reason enough that your business needs to be involved with Facebook! If your not currently involved with Facebook I highly suggest signing up for an account.
From within Facebook it is also advised to create a group, participate in other groups and create a Facebook business page. In short, start using Facebook. The learning curve is easy to overcome and its easy to search targeted people to become involved with.
Try and log into Facebook every time that you check your email. Make it a point to add 5 new targeted friends everyday and try to participate in groups related to your business on a daily bases. Soon enough, with consistent use, you will notice that Facebook works.
Facebook is the biggest of all social media sites, but you cannot forget about other social media sites. Become involved with as many other social media sites that you can sign up for. Signing up for a bunch of social media sites allows you to get your links out, and will help your find-ability within the internet in general.