Web Marketing Basics
What is web or online or Internet marketing? Let’s cover some web marketing basics that will show you just some of what’s possible! If done correctly, using the Internet will have you so flooded with potential business that you’ll be sending them to other colleagues - or maybe not!!
Plus, you will be able to stay in constant contact with current customers, which will keep you on their minds and keep them coming back to see you!
Using the web is not as hard as it seems. The key ingredient is your time and brainpower, which for most businesses and professionals, the time part is a bit of a challenge.
So, you can do one of two things: do it yourself or have someone within your organization handle this or you can hire out to a company like ours.
One other thing before we get to the meat of all this: Web design companies are great! However, most of them are only there to produce the website. Some will actually offer tips and resources on how to market your site, but the majority of time, they will not as that is not their expertise.
What is the point in having a great looking website that gets buried with all others where nobody can find it. Did you know that a high percentage of people never look past the top 30 searches when they are searching at Google, Yahoo, etc…
Therefore the first step in planning your website design and content is to research keywords surrounding your niche/business. There are free tools out there - good keywords, keyword discovery, and Google has a keyword tool as well.
You can also pay to do this and some website building programs actually come with excellent keyword research tools. This part can take quite a bit of time and it will be vital to the ease of how you are found in the search engines.
Why is this important? Because, you want keywords that people are actually searching for, that relates to your business, and makes you easy to find. When that happens you have a visitor to your site that is already looking for you!
Another reason it’s important is because when you rank well at the search engines, it does not cost anything and gives a lot of credibility to your business.
That’s just the beginning.
Without going into detail in our web marketing basics article (we’ll do that as we break things down), let’s uncover just some other web marketing basics that you’ll certainly run into and perhaps implement in your marketing strategy.
1. Good and easy web design - this includes graphics, logos, content, navigation, and added features so people can tune in (RSS, email sign up, bookmarking, etc.). There’s a lot that goes into the design of a site and a number of different languages that can be utilized depending on your needs. The beauty is that there are a lot of great and easy to use tools out there to do this - however the element of time still plays a factor.
2. Content - This is critical. Just giving some basics, an about our company page, and no real value will not do anything for your business. You need to presell the folks who are there looking for your help. Provide tips, articles, information, reasons to contact you!! Reasons to sign up by submitting their email so you can stay in touch with them. Nowadays you can even offer videos, audio, downloads, and more. The best sites out there offer value and aren’t just brochures of the company. You have to realize that your customers want to know what’s in it for them - not you.
3. Email Marketing - Have you ever signed up for a free newsletter? Then the owner of that site sends you repeated emails with all sorts of information about the topic of interest? This is email marketing. To keep it simple, people sign up for free at your site so that you can stay in touch with them on an ongoing basis. This will allow you to generate potential leads as well as keep in touch with current customers. There are various types of email software and services that you can use for this that makes it quite easy. This is also vital for a lead generation type website.
4. Traffic - This is a must if your website is going to work for you. And it works 24/7 whether you attend to it or not. The key to all this is once you work on bits of the above you will spend a lot of your time here - building traffic. This is done many different ways and new methods are always surfacing…
- Search engine optimization or organic search. This happens when someone types in a keyword at Google (i.e. “Dayton Lawn Care Companies”) and the list of websites pop up. You want to be in the top 10-20 of that list. The beauty today is the search engines now have localized features so you are found easier and these local keywords are easier to rank high for. However, this can take time to get high rankings to patience is key.
- Pay per click advertising - There are many forms of advertising online, but this is one that is quite easy to set up and start with. It is fairly easy to monitor as well, but there are some key things that you should do so the money doesn’t fly out the door. The good news is that you only pay when someone actually clicks your ad, but if done incorrectly could cost you a small fortune. This is also the quick way to get exposure.
- Link building. This is done a variety of ways but the key is to get links pointing to your website from other well-known sites. You can write articles, submit to web directories, participate in forums and discussions, and more. These are just a few of the web marketing basics when it comes to link building. You can pay to have most of this done for quite cheap.
There are a ton of ways to generate traffic as these are just a few. We’ll dive into those more and more.
We just wanted to give you a taste of what the Internet can do for your business. These web marketing basics can truly help your business utilize the online world to tap into a stream of business that will have you turning people away.
Stay tuned as we venture into the world wide web. Realize that there is a lot to it, but just implementing one or two good strategies can make a drastic difference to the success of your business.
Remember, you can always contact us at infoatcollinsworthgroup.com for more information regarding how we can assist you to put the web to work for you.
To your success,
Joe
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment