Marketing Your Business Online

More and more people are turning to the internet, not just for information and free resources, but to locate needed products and services, compare prices and quality, research businesses and ultimately to buy products and services online. With this being a major new trend in consumer spending habits any business not using the internet to market their business, (whether the company is on or offline), is missing the opportunity to grab the attention of some portion of their potential customer base and the related income that might be generated.

Marketing online can be fairly simple and cost-effective, or elaborate and expensive and everything in between. The determining factors are the type of business you have, your competition, how you plan to make your business stand out and of course, your marketing budget and the amount of time and effort you are willing to put into it. However, you should be aware that the smaller your marketing budget is, the more time and effort you will have to personally put into your marketing in the beginning stages.

Regardless of the marketing system you use, there are some key components you need to include in your internet marketing efforts.

1. To successfully market online you will need to establish an online presence using either a website or blog or preferably both in order to connect with potential customers and provide them with information regarding your products or services.

Ø      When you build your website, or blog – make sure that it is:

• Easy to navigate

• Fast to download

• Full of good quality informative content

• Centered around a good opt-in offer

• Regularly updated. Occasionally provide new resources or information to encourage repeat traffic and ask for a sign-up to your list. By having them sign-up you can let them know when you have additional information they might be interested in hearing about.

This is important, without these two steps you probably won’t make a sale or ever hear from that visitor again.

Also, while you can encourage book marking your site, don’t rely on it for repeat visitors.

Ø      Select a domain name that is.

• Easy to remember

• Related to or descriptive of your product or service

• Easy to say and spell

• Not easily confused with another company’s domain name
2. Another of the main components is generating traffic or visitors to your site, and capturing their contact information in order to build a customer list. In fact this is a core component regardless of what marketing system you use.

Ø      Some of the ways you can get traffic to your site:

• Get your website posted in search engine and directory listings like Google Open Directory and Yahoo

• Promote your site using social marketing media like FaceBook, Twitter, forums and blogs to name a few

• Article marketing with quality content

• Pay Per Click Advertising

• One way links, link exchanges, & link trades back to your site

• Classified ad placements & press releases

3. Finally, communicate regularly with your list and establish a mutually beneficial ongoing relationship with your subscribers that will convert them to paying customers and provide them with high quality, useful information, products and services.

Getting visitors to your site and then successfully turning those visitors into customers is the essence of internet marketing.