Internet Marketing 101
Posted on | June 8, 2007 | No Comments
The Basics of Internet Marketing Your Site on the Internet
You may have heard this marketing tip before, but that’s because it works. Whatever your company produces, it should have your website address printed somewhere on it. If you are a bar, for example, plaster your URL on your advertising, hats, t-shirts, matchbooks, menus, handouts, business cards, signage, email signature, and your door! And don’t overlook your receipts either – just about everyone takes one home with them!
It’s Time to Hit the Links
While most people think of outbound links as simply sending traffic away from their site, that’s not how a good marketing mind works. Instead you need to think of yourself as the center of a giant hub for all information related to your site. Remember, the Internet is the information highway. Make your site a necessary pit stop and you’ll have just as much traffic coming in as going out.People come to your site for a reason. And whether that reason is to buy a product or research a particular topic, visitors on the web have a thirst for information that you’re unlikely to satisfy all by yourself. So, start to think, “What other sites have information that my visitor’s would be interested in?” If you sell motorcycles, for example, you’d want to link to site’s that talk about ‘How to choose the motorcycle that’s perfect for you” or “Motorcycle rankings and reviews.” Remember, you do not want to link to sites that do the exact same thing you do (i.e. your competition). Instead, you want to link to sites with information that compliments what you offer.Once you’ve found a collection of sites on the Internet that compliment your own, create a ‘Links’ or ‘Directory’ page that links your site to theirs. Don’t worry about getting links back just yet! Concentrate first on building a quality resource that your site visitors will use and appreciate. Once you’ve built this section to a point you are happy with, contact the people you’ve linked to, notify them you have linked to their site, and invite them to create a link back to yours. If you’ve used your Internet Marketing savvy to build a high quality resource, you will be surprised at how many sites will start to link back to you.
Link Popularity Programs: Perilous or Prudent?
Every search engine optimization company will say they offer a link popularity program, but distinguishing between the good and bad ones can be tricky. You need to ask the right questions to weed out the link farms from the quality directories.
1.For every link coming back to your site or going out, ask yourself ‘Does it make sense for me to be linked to this site?’ ‘Are we offering complimentary information?’ 2.Can this SEO company put together several one-way incoming links for me? 3.If the number of links is a guaranteed number, do the links that you reject count against the guarantee? 4.Are these links of “high quality”? Do they havef a high Page Rank on Google (using the Google Toolbar) and are they in the same field as my site? Like sites of high Page Rank are the links that will make the biggest difference to your own ranking.
Answers to these questions should help you avoid those nasty link farms that link to everything and anything under the sun. Search engines are tired of getting fooled by these optimization tricks and are getting very good at weeding these out. Therefore, why get involved in a link farm that won’t even be around in the next few months or weeks? Instead, always go back to question 1, “Does it make sense for me to be linked to this site?” If it doesn’t feel right or make sense, don’t do it just because they have a high Page Rank. If you help the search engines out by only linking to high quality, related sites, they’ll help you out in the rankings in return.
Avoid the Internet’s Own Bermuda Triangle
Use the questions above each an every time you deal with link popularity schemes and you’ll avoid falling into this year’s trap du jour: Triangle Theory. A company buys an expiring domain with a decent Page Rank on Google. They build a huge directory of links on this and other similarly ranked pages, all pointing to each other, trying to boost each others rankings even further. You can usually recognize these sites by their strange domain names – completely unrelated to a seemingly random and huge collection of outgoing links. These sites will not ask you for a link back to their directory. Instead, they’ll ask you to link out from your site to a different site they are trying to boost the rankings for. This closes the triangle and uses your site as pawn in their own business to boost the rankings of other pages they own. A good Internet marketing strategy from their point of view, but not so good from yours. Especially because once the search engines catch these companies at their scheme, their rankings will fall sharply taking your site into oblivion along with it.
Pay Your Way Into the Express Lane
Paid links can often give you a quick surge in the rankings that the above methods could only provide you over time. But beggars can’t be choosers, now can they. If you need results now, find out who’s listed on the first page for the directories you want to be listed in. Drop them a line and find out how you could get paid placement. Often these sites have the kind of numbers (placements, traffic, and Page Rank) that may make them a bit pricey, but they’ll provide you with a lot of traffic, making it a smart Internet Marketing decision.
The Ultimate Internet Marketing Let down
Ultimately, your site needs to be worthy of a high ranking. It needs to keep visitors coming back and be presentable enough that it doesn’t scare incoming links away. Make sure your site contain all the basics: hours of operation, phone number and address. Ensure that information is easy to find, and that you have no broken links. Do you provide secure purchases? Is all your information up-to-date? These all may seem like basic Internet marketing principles, but sometimes we get so busy looking outside of our site, we forget that it represents the foundation of our online business. If its crumbling, everything might go with it.
Remember to impress your market audience with all the basics, provide high quality resources for your visitors to use, avoid shady marketing tactics, and you’ll have a website that ranks high and does more than just look pretty.
Internet Marketing 101 – Part II:
Starting Your Marketing Campaign
Content Key to Search Engine Visibility
How do potential customers find you on the Internet? They type a keyword or phrase into the search engines and voila! Up pop some results.
How do you get your site onto those first pages of results? Well, if you’ve done your homework from our “Internet Marketing 101 – Part I” article, you’re well on your way to building a quality link system that is
important to the search engine ranking algorithms. However, the phrase that pays today is “Content Is King.”
The search engines want to direct their clientele to websites full of informative information on the topic they’ve searched for. This means crawling through your website to ensure it actually contains the keyword or
phrase the search engine client has searched for. So finding the most searched for keywords and phrases in your field and ensuring that they appear on your site is crucial to your Internet success.
Determine the keywords you want to be found under and then work with different keyword combinations to ensure you have a balance broad and more specific keyword combinations. Most people searching on
the Internet start with a broad query, but then quickly learn to narrow that down as off topic results are displayed.
Let’s take the example of someone searching for hockey equipment. They may start with “Hockey Equipment” and then after clicking on a few of the results, realize that they should specify what type of equipment
they want. Next, they search for “Goalie Hockey Equipment”…. After clicking a couple more choices, they may search on “Goalie Pads”, finally narrowing it down to “Bauer Goalie Pads”. Research has shown,
that the more specific the search, the more likely that search will end in a purchase.
To make sure your don’t miss any of the most popular keyword search terms, use a search engine like Ask Jeeves, where alternate searches are suggested in the upper right hand corner. Also, use a tool such as
keyword Service or the Overture Keyword Selector Tool. I guarantee you’ll find new keyword combos you would not have ever thought of on your own!
Once you have a keyword list, make sure they are used within the context of your pages. Visitors are annoyed when they arrive on a site totally unrelated to their search term and can instantly tell when you’re
just inserting popular keywords to gain search engine rank. And an upset customer is a customer you’ve lost for life.
Make sure that your web pages have great titles that incorporate your keyword(s) smoothly. Never stuff your keywords into titles, creating boring lists instead of powerful calls to action, because it is your page
titles that show up on the search engine listings. What do you think people would rather read? A site that uses this as a sales pitch “hockey equipment, goalie hockey equipment, bauer goalie equipment….” Or do
you think they’d rather visit a site that says “Wide Range of Hockey Equipment In-Stock Now! Slashed Prices on ALL Bauer Goalie Gear!”
Know Thy Competition
This is not only one of the 10 Commandments of Internet marketing, but of marketing period! If you don’t know your competition, how will you know how to beat them?
Who is your competition?
That’s easy. Just search for the keywords you want to be found under, in the directory you want to be found in, and your competitors will be listed by the search engines for you.
What can you do to beat them?
Take notes on what you think they do well, what they don’t do well, what clients they serve, etc. and try to create a website that’s unique in terms of content, navigation, design and clientele.
Could your site be more informative? How about easier to navigate? More visually attractive? More corporate? More rural? It’s up to you, but finding a factor that’s unique to you will be critical your success.
Become in Demand Through the Email Inbox
Today, people don’t like to give away personal information such as their email address. So if you want to get into their email inbox, you had better come up with a pretty compelling reason for them
to give that information up.
Classic email Internet marketing techniques include weekly or monthly newsletters where members can be the first to find out about your new products, get the latest money saving coupons,
or deals available ONLY through your newsletter. The keyword there is ONLY. People like exclusivity and will give you their email address if this is the ONLY way they can receive extra special offers.
One other key not to forget is to make sure you only send email to those who’ve requested it through your site and make sure your email recipients have a reliable way to unsubscribe as well.
You don’t want to violate any of those new privacy laws.
Internet Marketing Resources You Can’t Do Without
Cool Web Designs by Cool Home Pages
Need inspiration for a great home page?
eMarketer: Internet, Business & Ecommerce Statistics
Email Marketing & Online Market Research
Starting an e-Business by Entrepreneur.com
eCommerce tools and tips.
Link Popularity Check
Find out how many other web sites link to yours.
Online internet surveys, demographics, statistics and market research by NUA
The world’s leading resource for internet trends and statistics.
Promotion World: Free search engine submission and web site promotion
Website for articles on the art of promotion.
Search Engine Watch: Tips About Internet Search Engines & Search Engine Submission
Tips on search engine optimization and submission.
Keyword services for professional search engine optimization by WordTracker
Gives you the most popular keywords and high ranking keyword suggestions.
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