Web Marketing Ideas | Web Marketing Advice | Successful Web Marketing
Successful Web Marketing Ideas and Advice Part 1
Looking for successful web marketing ideas? Here’s some advice on how to effectively promote your business on the web.
First you need a business and a website. You’ve done that but you are not satisfied with the quantity and / or quality of leads your website is generating, so far you web marketing ideas aren’t so successful. Here’s what to do.
Web Marketing Ideas
I’ve broken down these web marketing ideas into three main categories: Web Marketing, Web Design and Web Marketing Process. Consider applying this web marketing advice as you grow your online business presence.
Successful Web Marketing
SEO – or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of increasing the organic (not paid) listings in search engines for targeted terms. Learn how to do this yourself (plan on invest 1,000’s of hours to do it very well) or hire someone to do it for you. Don’t commit the sin of developing a beautiful, content-rich website that no one can find because this step was omitted. SEO applies to both on page optimization and off page optimization. If you only take one piece of web marketing advice, take this: optimize your website for search engines.
Pay per Click Marketing – Google AdWords being the most common, but Bing and Yahoo have their own paid search marketing platforms. Paid search marketing (pay per click marketing or PPC) is a way to quickly generate targeted traffic to your website at a cost you control. The advantage is the immediate traffic; the disadvantage is you pay for every click.
Social Media – This is one of the fastest growing areas of web marketing. There are numerous websites – the heavyweights being Facebook and Twitter but the list is vast and most sites have their own twist on social interaction via the internet. While many find this a difficult area to monetize, the value of the inbound links (in most cases) is certainly a plus, and it creates another channel to communicate your product or service. (Note the social media links at the bottom of this post).
Create a Blog – By creating a blog you have content that is easily shared throughout the web, allowing you to link to other blogs, and of course have them link in to your website. As your popularity increases you will generate more inbound links and a following of people that are interested in your products, services and content. Plus the content management systems of blogs make it very easy to organize and create new web pages, without knowledge and experience in coding a website.
Networking – Not just networking through the web, but also through your (human) contacts. Networking, especially for small businesses is one of the best ways to build awareness of your website and your products or services. If you educate your network on web marketing (and they own websites) you can also generate traffic through that relationship. Remember to give more than you receive – it will come back to you.
Quality Content – This will be covered in more detail with the next article in this series, but providing valuable, original content will play a large role in the success of your web marketing efforts. Create valuable content and create it often. Adding a page a day for a year is sound web marketing advice. Sound like a lot of work? It is – but like most things in life that are worth achieving, it takes effort.
Website Design
Website Design – If possible, hire a professional web designer to develop a great looking site. Successful web marketing, in my opinion, is more by the marketing items I listed above – but good design goes hand in hand with good marketing and quality content.
Website Structure – Your website should be easily navigable – meaning any page on the website can be accessed in two clicks or less. The website navigation should be clean and intuitive. I like to create logical groupings of categories within clients’ websites. The web pages within each grouping interlink to one another so it’s clear to both users and search engines that all related web pages are contained within their logical grouping. Avoid making web pages that run too deep – no more than 4 directory levels in a URL, in fact, the fewer the better. Also, create websites that load quickly.
Contact Form – If you don’t have one, you need one – that simple. Especially if you plan on running paid search marketing. Create a contact form on your website.
Practical Web Marketing Ideas
Granted, this is a partial list of web marketing ideas but diligently applying this web marketing advice will result in successful web marketing. In part two of this Web Marketing Ideas series, we’ll cover how to develop valuable content that targets the type of visitors you want to attract to your website.
Related Resources:
7 Ways Internet Marketing Can Supercharge Your Small Business
Read the next articles in the series here:
Successful Web Marketing Ideas: Creating Valuable Content
Increase Website Visibility
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