The dominant strategy to quickly launch your Internet presence
With all the marketing and advertising choices available today (email marketing, pay per click, banner advertising, display advertising, free samples, etc., the many conventional print advertising and marketing methods including brochures, direct mail, newspaper and magazine advertisements, radio and television broadcasts, and others) the one true, best way to position your particular kind of service or product (herein referred to as product) is the good, old fashioned word-of-mouth.
If your small-to-medium-sized business is similar to most, you have a blog or a Web site and you are hoping it will create business, or leads, or at least some interest. If it isn’t performing like you had anticipated, maybe you left something out of the business marketing equation. Don’t feel bad, because many businesses do the same thing.
Time and again the business owner or executive will try to save money and get a Website up and operational via the many software programs and designers on hand for a low or moderate price, and believe they are now on the Internet like other companies, and can expect that the Website will do for them what it is perceived to be doing for their competitors. Well, it doesn’t work that way, and why should it?
Consider it this way; when you want to try a new restaurant, do you trust the restaurant you know something about over the one you do not? Do you visit the restaurant that has many cars in the parking lot or the one that has very few? Why?
Let’s assume you have an active Website online, and you need to position your business as the authority in its niche and be located in the top ten (first page) of Google, Bing, and Yahoo, along with other search engines.
If you do not yet have a Website, determine a strategy and pricing structure to design the quarterly expenditures and scrutinize the results, before your new site goes live.
Web site marketing ideas
First step: optimize your website for search engines. Either spend the time reading and learning how, or find a dependable source for search engine optimization (SEO).
At this stage, I recommend to my new clients placing as much relevant matter about your market niche on your site as frequently as you possibly can. Your business is attempting to catch up with others who are steadily placing content on their site and on the Web, and you are also trying to remain ahead of others who are attempting to do the same thing.
Here is where I have proven to be very valuable to my clients, and if you employ my services you will never run out of information to place on your site or in your marketing mix.
I like the plan of placing at least an article a week to keep the search engines in action and alert to your business brand. A cost-effective marketing strategy includes a blog or RSS feeds at your Web site, with a Share This control that will allow you or others to easily suggest the article or blog to social networking sites such as Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, and lots of others.
The Web site marketing plan that works
For a mere $40, I generate multiple variations of an article that I compose for $100 (which is always 600 words or more for this particular use), issue them to several hundred sites, 4 to 5 articles or more per day, for as many days in a row until the sites have accepted the posts. That’s hundreds of articles and potential links to your site (also known as inbound links or back links).
Social networking sites (like those in the Share This device) are very significant and it doesn't expend a lot of content to communicate this way. A brief mention of something notable or something others can use; something of value to the reader is valued and can produce more interest in the rest of your Web site and may evoke a reaction--a customer contacting you; that’s what you intend!
Use social networking to your internet marketing benefit
I recommend to my clients to post a couple of observation sentences on these blog internet pages, or if there are many and it consumes too much of the client’s schedule, I will for $1.00 per blog comment. Clients get the blog sites and let me know.
But be wise not to create articles on social networking sites sales pitches or they will get removed and you may be penalized. You want to inform and educate first. A greater way to get response is to ask engaging questions! People usually choose to add their two cents worth and it can be fun and entertaining to others such as titling a post, "What do you do when things fail?"
Evaluate your how your site's internet pages are performing with free analytics
It's important to have a plan in place to both measure the results, and to prepare for expenditures, or reductions in expenditures (such as seasonal downturns). My marketing plans are structured for maximum effectiveness so you can determine more precisely what types of customers will need your services and when, who to make contact with and how, what their hot buttons are, and so on.
I have an account that I have been writing and editing and optimizing older articles and press releases for, and discovered that he did not know whether or not his site was signed up with directories and did not know about all the different submission websites he could be distributing marketing content to until I showed him. In only three weeks he saw abrupt improvement in his site’s activity, and in succeeding weeks customer activity, without expensive pay per click campaigns that he had tried and were proving useless.
Using Google's free analytics to review the activity of the site and specific Web pages can inform a business volumes regarding what is most significant to the customers in that market niche.
Online marketing takes effort. I have been contracted to perform as an offsite communications director to provide services for other companies that do not have the time or inclination to process these various tasks and it is effective for them.
Use my services and I will put together a proposal on what is best for your particular Internet marketing needs.
Author Resource:
Jim Angel is a freelance copywriter and communications director in Dallas, Texas specializing in Web concepts and strategies for business, with clients nationwide.
http://www.jhowardco.com