Online Marketing – an Overview
This article is a simple overview of my understanding of Internet Marketing.
The internet is a wonderful tool for delivering information. If you are marketing your business on the internet then you are a solutions provider.
In view of the large number of web pages on the internet, you are competing in a global market for attention. It is pointless building a website if you cannot be found by your customers.
Find a Niche
It is therefore important that your website or web pages address a niche segment (or segments) of the market.
The more focused the niche, often the more attractive your site will be. This is counter intuitive because we all want to reach as many people as possible. However, for general topics, there is massive competition and you will be competing against large businesses with large budgets.
Whilst focused niches will attract less traffic, for this very reason large businesses will not try compete because it is not worth their while. Also, as an expert in a niche you will appeal more directly to your audience.
The Importance of Market Research
Research is of paramount importance. For any product or service, you need to understand who your competition is and what keywords your customers will put into the search engine to find you.
So you need to research two things: the niche you intend to occupy and the keywords you will use for people to find you.
Such research can be laborious and time consuming. To cut this down to size, I use a software tool called ‘Market Samurai’. This enables you to research the following quickly and easily:
Keywords – the amount and value of the traffic of relevant keywords.
- Who and what the competition is and how easy it will be to compete
- What content there is out there already on the internet for any keyword
- Once your site is built, how your site ranks against the competition so you can track progress.
If you don’t do your research, then you may find that you are working hard for an impossible goal i.e. to appear in the free listings of the search engine.
If that is the case, then the only people who will view your site will be people you send there through other means such as paid advertising, business cards, email signatures, articles, videos or social networking.
Fortunately, the internet is an excellent tool for carrying out market research and the spoils will generally go to those who are willing to do it.
The Importance of Keywords
‘Keywords’ is the term used for the words people put into search engines such as ‘Google’ or ‘Yahoo’ or ‘MSN’ to find what they are looking for.
You need to know what words these are for your product or service because they will form the essence of your marketing as, to be search engine friendly and relevant, you will need to use them in:
- Your URL (or website address)
- In your web page title
- In the meta tags on the page (- these are words embedded in the html of the page)
- In your webpage description
- In your web page titles
- In your web page content
The Importance of Links
In order to give sites a ‘ranking’, in addition to the relevance of the web page, the search engines look at who is linking to your web page as a resource. The number and quality of links determine where your site appears i.e. on page 1 or page 100.
You will need to consider a strategy for obtaining links to your website. Other than approaching other sites you want to link with and linking through your own content, I have not yet found an easy way to achieve this.
The high quality of your content is perhaps the best way of gathering links over time.
Strategies for Generating Traffic
Whilst generating free traffic by appearing on the first page of the search engine is the ultimate goal, this may take time to achieve.
Here are some more strategies for generating traffic to your website:
Article marketing i.e. placing articles around the internet that link back to your website
- Press Releases with your contact details and web address
- Newspaper, Magazine & Ezine advertising
- Forum marketing i.e. commenting on forums where people have a problem that needs solving.
- Blogging
- Viral marketing – offering free e-books etc with your contact details.
- Joint ventures i.e. promoting yourself through other peoples customer lists and sharing the profit.
- Social networking such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn
- Social bookmarking i.e. sites where you register your favourite sites which can include your own best stuff.
- Media sharing such as YouTube and Flickr
- Pay-per-click advertising through Google, yahoo, MSN and Amazon.
The purpose of all these strategies is to seed a web of content on the internet which leads back to your main site where you offer your products and services.
Your content needs to be well-researched, educational and to add value to those searching for a solution to a problem thereby generating the trust necessary to make someone want to contact you.
You will need sales skills and copywriting skills in order to write attractive content and web pages that convert interest to a lead or purchase.
Monetising Your Traffic
When you have people actually looking at your web pages on the internet, you can start to earn money either by offering your own products and services or by offering other peoples.
The latter is called affiliate marketing. In return for promoting their product or service, you receive a percentage of the income.
Clickbank provides a market for such services but there are many other affiliate marketing opportunities on the internet. You don’t have to design your own products!
Also, once you have traffic on your web pages you can sell advertising space to other people.
Generating Leads
Whilst you may be able to make a sale direct off your web page, it is often easier to generate a lead by offering something for free and then to follow up that lead through email marketing (using a transponder system) and/or by phone or direct mail.
Compiling your database and communicating cheaply and regularly with your database is the key to generating profits from the internet. Ideally you are looking to walk your customer up a ladder of products and services but you will only be able to do that if you offer consistently good value in return for their investment in you.
Your back-end product may be a continuity programme where your customers pay a monthly fee to receive your training or information. This gives you additional opportunities for presenting even more value.
To Conclude
To be successful in internet marketing requires a large number of skills and competencies.
For someone new to internet marketing, the obstacles may appear insurmountable. The good news is that click-by-click, comprehensive on-line video training on how to be successful with all of the skills and strategies mentioned is available at the Renegade University. Whilst the training is directed at network marketers, it is also directly relevant for any business.
Also, many of the tools required are now free and easy to use if you just know where to look. If you have any aspirations to market your business on the internet, you will cut back on years of frustration if you let someone with experience show you how.
The investment of money is insignificant in relation to the amount of time you will save.
I highly recommend that you enrol with the Renegade University – it has been the single best investment I have made in my marketing education. But don’t invest yet – why not read The Attraction Marketers Manifesto to find out more.
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