The first step to developing a successful internet marketing strategy is to identify an aspect of your business that you can dish online. Which product or service can you bring in the most traffic with? How is this product or service different from the competition’s and how are profitable is marketing it? What is your niche that has the largest potential for online sales? Look at the factors at play such as cost of online promotion and what you stand to benefit from promoting it online.
Web Design
Does your business already have a website? If not then a website should be in short order! Web design is very important your website is your online storefront and it can tell a lot about a business. Web design can greatly impact sales. Is your website easy to navigate for the intended user and how good is the conversion of traffic to sales? What is the goal for visitors when they visit your site? Do you have a way to convert visitors into customers? Is product or service information easily found for the majority of people go to your site? Google Analytics is a great way to track site traffic. Look at the analytic data to monitor how your site is performing.
Search Engine Optimization
Perhaps you are receiving traffic to your site already through an offline marketing strategy but think that you could really increase sales and brand awareness through an online marketing campaign. One of the major and most effective ways to bring traffic to you site is through search engine optimization or SEO. SEO is far superior to paid advertisements and services like Adwords. It’s much less expensive and produces long term results.
There are two types of search engine optimization and combined they are sure to increase traffic. On site optimization is the art of making changes to you website or a particular pages so that the search engines can organize it properly. For instance, a computer services business would probably want to optimize their site for the keyword ‘computer repair’. The owner would want to make the page title, tags and descriptions are of a particular page of their website to contain ‘computer repair’. This set’s the hook for search engine traffic to visit the site. There are many other factors that play into onsite optimization but we’ll skip those for now.
Off site optimization is just as important. This is done by creating a relationship between your website and many other websites. People use techniques such as directory submission, blogging, article submissions which allow your to create links back to your website. An important link building strategy would be to target other websites which are relevant to your own business’s products and services.
Social Media Marketing
There are many types of social media sites available besides Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It’s good to spend some time identifying which social media site will be the most effective by providing the largest target market for your business. It is better to concentrate your efforts to a select few social media sites to ensure your followers receive the proper amount of attention. There are many companies out there that can help you manage your business’s online presence through social media and it’s relatively inexpensive compared to traditional methods like radio and television advertisement.
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About the Author
Anthony Scolaro, a young, highly motivated and technical savvy South Carolinian at heart, has a passion for computers and a love of people. In the Spring of April, 2009, Anthony began creating a life for himself in Charleston, SC by reaching out to businesses and individuals in the community in need of computer repair, web design or other technical services. He started a business called Palmetto Computer Services, a name that would give an identity to his works in Charleston. Bringing his passion for computers and love of people together into a functional employment has been and will continue to be a blessing for him as well as to love what he does so he can make today and tomorrow more of the world we can all enjoy. Online we are all one people.