Showing posts with label internet marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet marketing. Show all posts

Friday 10 February 2012

How An Internet Marketing Company Can Dramatically Improve Your Website’s Performance

So your business already has a website. Great. But is it working for you? Is it bringing in a high volume of enquiries each and every month which you can readily convert into sales? Or is it quite simply . . . there?


Your website is your business’s shop window, so it’s essential your browsers (visitors) like what they see – at least that they want to know more about what you can offer, which could lead to a sale. First and foremost an internet marketing company can make sure your website is doing its job properly.

As a business owner you will know that having a web presence is pretty much an essential requirement these days. But in the beginning when you’re just starting out, it’s all too easy to focus all your attention on the ‘building the website’ part, and very little on the ‘what happens next?’ part.



With the result that you could have a website that is at best under-utilised, and at worst, never gets picked up by the search engines. Which means the only people that contact you are people who already know you through other sources.

When you are ‘invisible’ to potential customers it’s very hard to grow your business. So what to do about it.

An internet marketing company can improve your website marketing in several ways:

By ensuring your website gets picked up by the major search engines.

Ensuring your site is well laid out and functions correctly.

Making certain your website fully represents you and what you stand for.

Creating an effective online marketing strategy for your business.

Have you ever happened upon a website that was over-cluttered, confusing, difficult to navigate, or where its purpose wasn’t immediately clear? When this happens, the visitor tends to take avoiding action and exit the site. Unfortunately, when this happens, you are likely to have lost your visitor for good. Let me ask you how often do you re-visit a website where you didn’t enjoy the experience first time round? So creating a website that provides a great visitor experience is paramount.

And once you have built your website that is clear and fully functional, you must ensure that all the major search engines (and particularly Google) can find you. In other words, your website must be search engine optimised. To the uninitiated, SEO is a bit of a mystery, but your internet marketing company will be able to advise you as to how they can get your website onto Page One of Google at a reasonable cost – which for most businesses is the ultimate goal.

Saturday 24 September 2011

Web Marketing For Business


If you want to succeed in business on the internet, marketing is vital. There are many facets to internet marketing. Which ones are the most important?


There’s no right answer to that question. This is a subjective topic and because the internet is very open source, there is no right or wrong answer but here is some information from a web marketing company about several vital steps that could help you increase your chances of online success:


Do Your Research

Before you embark on an internet marketing campaign, doing a substantial amount of research is essential. You’ll want to research your market, your competition, your audience, and review information to help you define a search engine marketing and / or pay per click advertising strategy. If you can’t do the research yourself either due to lack of expertise in this area or lack of cycles you could hire an internet research or consultancy firm to help you.



What’s important from a research perspective? Whether you do it yourself or get some help, keyword analysis is important. Analysing your competition will help you as well. Looking at various social media strategies can provide a wealth of info and gathering general business intelligence will pay off in multiple ways --- helping you define, strategise, and execute a campaign that will work.
Analysis

After you’ve defined and executed your web marketing strategy, ongoing analysis will tell you what’s going well and what isn’t going so well. Info gathered for internet marketing campaigns can help you with improvements and can also help you fuel future campaigns as well.

Reputation and Relationship Development & Management

Work to develop a great reputation online. Establish yourself as a professional and establish your company’s presence as one that believes in customer experience, value, and service.

Online success needs more that just development of a reputation and / or a brand. It also requires that you nurture relationships. Social marketing is a two way street. So is blogging. Customers are looking for value and this can help to establish trust. Nurturing online reputation and relationships can equate to trust and success in gathering subscribers and followers to your website. Those subscribers and followers could become future clients and sources of word of mouth referrals.

Again, there are many facets to web marketing and taking a step at a time can help you success. Regardless of whether you’re embarking on a campaign on your own or getting help and whether you’re new to this or not, taking steps toward increasing your online presence is exciting and can pay off huge dividends.

Thursday 8 September 2011

Why Link Tracking is Important for Successful Internet Marketing

Once you have set up your internet marketing it is vital that you keep track of how it is working and if it is as successful as you require. This is mainly because it is not worth spending out money on certain types of search marketing if they are not generating the sales that you need. Link tracking is the process in which you use software, website logs and other means of tracking to keep an eye on the response that you get.

How does Tracking Work?
These days there are a number of different methods that you can use to track links including services that will actually do the hard work for you; although these will cost you a small fee. However if you wish to do this yourself then services such as Google Analytics may help and can be a great place to get started before spending out money on paid services. In the main you will need to know a few details about the pages you are interested in such as a small piece of tracking code.

You could also try your own version of tracking by creating separate pages that are identical and giving them different names and then linking your various internet marketing pages to these. This is one way to quickly see which pages are being viewed the most and therefore which of your adverts are proving most effective at generating leads.




Why Track Links?
The main reason for tracking your internet marketing is to see how effective your campaigns are and therefore which to continue with and which may need some work. By tracking this information you can create better advertising campaigns in the future and know exactly how to appeal to your niche market. In the long run this can help you save a considerable amount of money on campaigns that are just not working.

So if you want to make your business successful and profitable you must track your internet marketing and find out exactly how many visitors you are getting. It may seem complicated and time consuming to begin with but the results will be worth it! If you aren't sure of how to go about this look up an internet marketing consultant.


Saturday 20 August 2011

Tips for Successful Online Business Marketing

In order to successfully run a business you need to give careful consideration to internet marketing. This article will advise you on the areas you need to think about.

It is important to understand what internet marketing is and how it works if you wish to make a success of your advertising. In the main, marketing online is about providing your potential customers with information on what it is you do or sell and offering them answers to any questions that you may have.


Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO is something that is often talked about but many do not realise how important it really is. Knowing what your target audience will search for is vital if you wish to gain their attention. Often the best way to do this is using a tool that will tell you what terms people are searching for when they visit sites such as Google. You can then include these keywords and any other variations within your text.

Blogs

Many businesses believe that blogs are no longer really used or read and that this is not an effective method of internet marketing. Blogs can take many different forms and they are in fact a really useful way to provide readers with clear information on what you do, as well as offering them advice.
It is also important to remember that blogs still rank well with search engines as they are generally updated regularly as well as containing high quality content. Therefore by having a blog linked to your website you are greatly increasing your internet marketing and the chance for potential customers to find you.



Can your Customers find you?

Having a website is vital and once you have one set up and have made sure that it is search engine optimized it is all too easy to forget about it and assume it will run itself. However it is important to keep trying to generate traffic by other means of internet marketing. Try to make sure that your website is featured on social media websites and perhaps consider taking out adverts as well.

It is also worth bearing in mind that once customers have found your website they need to be able to contact you. To make it easy for people to do this try posting this information on the footer of each page.

Monday 11 July 2011

SEO Copy is the Spice of Internet Life

In these digital times, it's all about the internet – plain and simple. Get your online offering really in gear and you'll reap the benefits when it comes to increasing traffic taking notice of your product or service.

With readable and exciting copy on your website, that also contains the relevant SEO, trending keywords – your 'authority' rating within the Google/search engine stratosphere will quickly begin to grow.


But, before you go any further it's a good idea to compare your business model to the following key points to see if you can really benefit from organic SEO:

1. Think about what your product, service or industry is and research as to whether users/customers actually use a search engine to look for it.
2. Consider the appeal of your website. Customers will be drawn to a well designed site that has good functionality and champions the virtues of the brand.
3. It is a competitive market out there. Double-check that the pricing of your product or service compares favourably with competitors.
4. In terms of a customers’ search engine input, is your site brought to their attention via the relevant phrases and keywords?

Right, so now you've decided SEO is definitely for you we can highlight a few sure-fire tips that will have your online presence really begin to pay dividends. It may take a fair amount of hard work and time but ultimately, organic SEO will prove more self-fulfilling long term than the immediacy of paying for your Google/search engine ranking.

Appeasing the almighty god that is the ranking algorithm, as hinted upon earlier, starts with the quality and regular updating of your content – add sound link building into the equation for good measure too. So ensure you have professionally written and, just as importantly, unique copy with your carefully selected primary keywords and key phrases from Google Adwords. Search engines find it impossible to resist tantalising, natural and fresh content.

Another good trick to consider is to make sure whenever you refer to yourself on your site, you always include your location as often as you can. For example, when you mention your head quarters use "London based office" or "our London store/office". This means you will begin to snare local searches of your product or service.

Of course, this is just the tip of the SEO iceberg and just the beginning of internet marketing – search online for a good SEO consultancy and see what else they can do for you and your business to climb those search engine rankings.

Thursday 30 June 2011

Making the Most of Internet Marketing

To gain as much exposure for your business as possible you will need to consider internet marketing. This article provides you with information on a few key areas that you might like to consider.

Marketing a home business has never been easier, with so many different options for advertising available. Internet marketing has helped many small businesses become successful and profitable in their own right and provides a quick and easy way to speak to your target audience no matter where they live. If you do not have the budget for a more costly, larger marketing campaign such as TV and radio, then you may wish to try internet marketing. There are a number of different options available so pick the one which is most suited to your type of business and budget and that will help you reach your customers.

1.Google AdSense

This is simply a program that will let you generate income by placing text or image ads from other companies onto your website and in turn you advertise on the pages of other sites. Be sure to choose sites that are related to the products or service that you offer. It will also allow you to filter out ads from your competition which could otherwise hinder your success.

AdSense will place your ads over the web and will then generate back links to your site to help improve your search engine ranking. You should be aware that these are not the annoying pop up ads that often appear when you visit a website but are actually placed on the site itself.

2. Banner Ads

This type of internet marketing often takes the form of animated or visually appealing graphics that appear across the top of a web page. These ads will be linked back to your website so that if someone clicks on them they will be taken straight there. Be sure to make them eye catching and offer an incentive for them to click; however be warned that many find these annoying so keep them relatively simple.




3. Online magazines

This type of internet marketing will offer you ad space, normally for a fee but this will depend upon how popular the magazine is and the cost will vary depending on how big your ad is. This can be a great way to advertise since you can find a magazine related to your business area so you know that those reading will have an interest in what it is you do.

Saturday 28 May 2011

How an Internet Marketing Expert could Help your Business

Marketing your business successfully is vital if you wish it to be as profitable as possible. Hiring an internet marketing expert is an ideal way to ensure that you do this correctly and attract new custom to your site.

If you want to make a real go of your business and to have as much success as possible then online marketing will be necessary. If you have little experience in this area then you may find that contacting an Internet Marketing Expert could be incredibly beneficial to you. Perhaps the main reason for needing to focus so much on internet marketing is that this is how so much of the world functions these days and if you want to get an edge over your competitors you need to follow suit.

1. Why Use an Internet Marketing Expert?

Research shows that these days around a third of the people that have a computer and internet connection will make purchases online, so this is a key way of targeting potential customers. It also means that you can find custom from all over the country and the world rather then just the area that you live. Internet Marketing Experts can help you to connect your website to the people that will be most interested in what it is that you have to offer; therefore helping to give your website the extra edge that may be required.

It is not simply enough to just set up a website or post a few adverts online; you need to make sure that your website ranks well with search engines and really stands out from all the rest. It is for this reason that hiring an Internet Marketing Experts could be a good move since they have the expertise to advise you on how to make the most of your business and advertising and attract the right customers. In order to do this a number of techniques will be employed including SEO, creating eye catching banners, setting up a regular blog and also using something as basic as trading links. By utilising these techniques you can increase the popularity and number of visitors to your website thereby increasing traffic and hopefully sales.



It is important that if you do choose to hire an Internet Marketing Expert that you find one with a good reputation and plenty of experience so that you know you can trust them to do a good job.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

How Tracking Your Internet Marketing Can Help your Business

Running a business can prove to be incredibly expensive, especially in the initial start up period. For this reason keeping track of your internet marketing can be an effective way of finding which of your marketing methods are working the best for you. After all, there is little point wasting time and money if you are not going to see the results from your efforts.

1.Why Track your Advertising?

The first thing you will need to do is work out which methods of marketing are most suited to your business. For example would having a blog be useful or are you going to get more traffic to your site posting articles to directories? Once you have decided you will then need to track how well these methods are working by monitoring hits to your website and/or blog, as well as back links that may have been created from articles and press releases.

This is also applicable if you choose to advertise within newspapers and magazines. One great way to track these ads is by asking people to quote a code when they contact you or adding an incentive for people to use certain links that you have set up. This could be a discount or a freebie.

2.How to Track Advertising

Tracking your internet marketing and advertisements need not be as complicated or time consuming as you may first assume. These days there are a number of programs that you can find online that are designed to help you carry out this task. They quickly and simply allow you to see how many hits you are getting and where you are generating the most traffic from. Although you may feel that this is an additional expense that you could do without, it may work out to be more cost effective in the long run and actually save you money.


It is important to realise that if you plan on carrying out a lot of internet marketing you should also be prepared to track it to see how productive it is proving. Hopefully you will discover that this is essential to the running of a successful business!

How to Make Online Networking Work for You – 6 Top Tips



















Many entrepreneurs and business owners are put off using social media to build an online network, because the whole concept is just too overwhelming and time consuming.
Well the good news is, it needn’t be.
There’s a huge gulf between using social media personally and professionally. On a personal note, it might give your ego a boost to say you have 3,000 Facebook followers, but that’s no good whatsoever for your business unless they are the right followers.
In the days before online networking existed, business owners and entrepreneurs would connect through breakfast clubs; chambers of commerce events; conferences and exhibitions. And of course, they still do, although these types of traditional networking venues are reporting a significant downturn in numbers.
Some people would consider it ‘mission accomplished’ if they got rid of their stack of business cards during the course of an event. They would give them out to all and sundry, probably accompanied by a well-rehearsed ‘elevator pitch.’
The savvier among the networking fraternity adopted a more strategic approach: they knew in advance who they needed to connect with, and made it their sole aim. Because online networking is, by nature, time-consuming, you need to remain disciplined and focused.

These 6 Top Tips will accelerate your Social Networking efforts:
1. Create a Social Networking Strategy, alongside your business plan. Few people would dream of starting a business without a business plan to guide them and it’s the same with social networking.
Ask yourself three key questions:
I. What do I want my Social Networking Strategy to do?
Build my brand? Enhance my reputation? Shift more products?
II. Who do I need to connect with to achieve my goals?

III. Where are these people I need to connect with and how do I reach them easily?

Draw up a list of your short, medium and long-term objectives.
2.Another secret to successful networking, is that you should offer ‘value’ without expecting anything back right away. So put loads of free content on your website or blog. For example:

 Ebooks
 MP3 downloads
 Webinars
 White papers
 Training videos & tools

Include anything which establishes you as an expert in your field and which you’re willing to give away for free. Sharing content and giving away value is a great way to grow your contacts organically – which will pay dividends further down the line.

3.When posting to your website or blog, make sure you syndicate your content through StumbleUpon’s URL-shortener ‘Su.pr‘ – which means it will go to StumbleUpon’s 10m-strong users, resulting in 3-4 times more traffic for you!
4.Use split-testing when making contact with people. You can split-test your email headings, content, the time of day you send your messages. Find out what works for your purpose and use it. But keep on testing.
5.Rather than delivering an elevator pitch to introduce yourself, think about creating your own ‘compelling story’ of around 50 seconds you can send viral via social media sites like Facebook and You Tube.
6.Don’t be afraid to reach out to your network for help. Only this week I heard from someone who was planning to go on Dragons’ Den to raise cash for her new business venture. Instead, she ran her idea by a few select contacts in her network and raised all the investment she needed! However, this only worked because she’d built up her contacts over time, established mutual trust – and given away great value first.
You can achieve virtually any goal by networking with the right people. Your network can be one of the most valuable business assets you own, so it’s worth spending some time getting your initially strategy right, for maximum impact and top results!
If you are unsure of how to go about marketing your self through online networking sites an internet marketing consultant will be abkle to help you.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Internet Marketing Helps You Get New Clients

How can you be sure that internet marketing will help you find new customers and help your business grow in a way you can support? Read on for some information that could help you shape an effective internet marketing campaign for your business that provides great return on investment in a way that your infrastructure can handle.

Research

Researching your market can help you find out which gaps you could fill for consumers. Researching your competitors can help you find out what gaps to fill so that you can increase market share --- wooing prospects away from competitors because you've created a better value added proposition.
Research can also help you formulate an effective strategy for dominating the internet in a way that brings about an excellent return on your financial investment and on the sweat equity you put into the process as well. That research can also help you prepare your business for an influx of new orders.

Testing

Once you've determined how to move forward with your internet marketing plan, testing is important. Running some split tests could help you carefully plan for the future and do so in a sustainable way. Controlled growth and controlled expenses are going to be important. Don't skimp on testing before rolling out a large and expensive marketing plan. You may want to start smaller scale and get more aggressive as you start to see return on that investment.

Analysis

Analysis of your internet marketing campaigns can help you figure out where to invest going forward. Analysis can help you formulate new plans to expand and improve on a continuous basis. Analysis can help you determine whether the plan and / or the professionals you're working with are doing a good job for your company.

Expanding Your Horizons

Don't get too stagnant. Your business direction should continually evolve, as should your internet marketing plan. Is today's plan bringing you new customers? If not, it's time for a change. Once your marketing efforts bring you five new customers a week, ramp up efforts so it brings you ten. As you expand your customer base, make sure your business infrastructure evolves to be able to support the volume boost. If it seems to daunting to continually expand on your own, don't hesitate to hire a professional. Controlled and careful growth in your marketing efforts as well as careful and controlled expansion of your business could result in a well balanced company balance sheet!

Sunday 13 February 2011

How to Make Your Home Business Advertising Work


Many people who have started their own home business and have been advertising and internet marketing for some months may feel down heartened that they are not receiving as much work as they had hoped. There are a number of reasons why this may be and it is important that you find these out quickly so as not to waste your time and effort.

1.Follow up any Leads

When people contact you directly or you have details passed to you then you will nearly always follow these leads up. However you should try to get into the habit of contacting anyone who shows interest in your business as you never know where this may lead. It is also worth investing your time in contacting people directly yourself and asking if they are interested in what you have to offer instead of waiting for them to come to you.

2.Never Stop Marketing

Even if your initial internet marketing campaign is successful you need to make sure that you do not get complacent and stop. However for those that have not had much success it may be tempting to give up and use your time to concentrate on other areas. This is not a wise move and will never result in a successful business. You need to make sure that you dedicate some of your time to your advertising campaign every day. This can be as little or as much as you can spare but is vital to spread the word about your business. In some cases advertising can be slow to be productive so the sooner you get started the better.

One of the best ways to gain the attention of a potential customer is to offer some kind of free incentive. This is normally done in exchange for peoples contact details and is a great way to build up your contact list. You can offer such free gifts as an e-book or cd on your blog or website. If this does not appeal to you then you could offer a discount or run a small competition. This is a good way to gather contact details as generally people will only sign up if they have an interest in what it is you offer. Make sure you follow up and send information out to anyone who signs up in this way.

By following these tips you should find that your advertising and internet marketing becomes more effective which in turn means more publicity for your business and more work!

Monday 31 January 2011

Use an Outside Marketing Company to Help You Navigate Social Media Outlets

The 21st century has brought a rise in popularity of social media and an outside marketing company can help you plug into this new way of advertising. The internet is an integral part of marketing these days so it is important to understand your options in reaching potential customers. You need to understand how these potential customers are able to shop, research purchases and share opinions about their experiences.


A number of social media sites provide a platform for users to voice their opinions, share content, information and recommendations about their favorite products, services and more. Your job is to reach these users so that they post favorable comments and reviews about your company's products and services. This is important; because of the internet's global market presence, many people depend on these reviews to make purchase decisions.


Understanding the Power of the Internet

You, like many other businesses, are likely finally recognizing the power of these global internet customers. By instituting the right strategies for social media marketing, you can produce higher branding recognition as well as personally engage those global customers.


A marketing company can help introduce you to these social media outlets. Instead of introducing a website and hoping that customers find you, you can promote your company's products and services through these outlets to reach your target audience. You can virtually shape and define new markets through the internet and encourage valuable feedback.


Boost Internet Search Results

Taking advantage of various social media outlets boosts your company's internet presence, specifically search engines. The more information and presence you have on the internet, the more likely your company will appear high on internet search rankings. This translates to a larger global internet presence and therefore, a higher sales margin.


Create an informational page in your company's niche and post articles. Develop a blog and post regularly to create a following. Post pictures, video clips and create business pages on the top social media sites. Hire people to post reviews and positive responses on forum boards and chat rooms to increase your internet presence. All of these things can help improve your placement on the internet.


The bottom line is that in order to compete, especially on the internet, you must get on the social media bandwagon. It is the wave of the future and if you cannot ride it on your own, hiring a marketing company is the best move you can make. They can get you started and train you on maintaining your online advertising and sales momentum.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Your Internet Marketing Consultant - The Key to Your Online Success?

Successful small businesses owners don't always get to the pinnacle of success on their own. In many cases, because they're a small company, they don't have the manpower that larger companies have. Many small business owners don't have the resources to increase their staff permanently and many don't always have the marketing knowledge and expertise to help themselves. A good solution is to hire contractors and consultants to help them.

One area that business owners or entrepreneurs might seek help with is with their infrastructure and their growth. A consultant could help a small company succeed in many ways. Hiring an internet marketing consultant, for example, could help you take your moderately successful business to the next level of success. If your business is failing or flailing, an expert could help you strategise and execute a plan of action to turn things in a better direction. If you're just starting out, a consultant could help you hit the ground running.

Hiring someone in a mentoring role could be just what you need. Instead of hiring a permanent employee, a consultant allows you to hire a seasoned expert either temporarily or in a specific capacity. This can be a symbiotic relationship,

Help for Start-Ups
Let's say you're just starting out. Whether you're experienced with the internet or not, getting help could be detrimental. There are many important facets to your internet marketing strategy. The consultant can help you with web design, search engine optimisation, paid advertising campaigns, gathering market intelligence, product launches, social media optimisation, reputation management, and more. They can also help you analyse your campaigns so that you can achieve optimal results and maximise our marketing budget.

Let's say you're already established but want to fix something that's broken or want to grow your business. An internet marketing consultant can help here, too. A professional can help you ascertain where improvements could be made both to your internal infrastructure as well as to your online efforts. Maybe some website tweaks, a new focus, a direct mail campaign, or another area could help you jumpstart efforts or regain lost market share.

So many different factors could be hampering your success. Maybe you know just what is standing in your way and maybe you're at a loss. In either case, an outside expert could be just what you need for perspective and for guidance on how to get from where you are to wherever it is that you want to go.

Which Steps Are Vital to Take for Internet Marketing Success?

If you want to succeed in business on the internet, marketing is vital. There are many facets to internet marketing. Which ones are the most important?

There's no right answer to that question. This is a subjective topic and because the internet is very open source, there is no right or wrong answer but here is some information from a marketing consultant about several vital steps that could help you increase your chances of online success:

Do Your Research
Before you embark on an internet marketing campaign, doing a substantial amount of research is essential. You'll want to research your market, your competition, your audience, and review information to help you define a search engine marketing and / or pay per click advertising strategy. If you can't do the research yourself either due to lack of expertise in this area or lack of cycles you could hire an internet research or consultancy firm to help you.

What's important from a research perspective? Whether you do it yourself or get some help, keyword analysis is important. Analysing your competition will help you as well. Looking at various social media strategies can provide a wealth of info and gathering general business intelligence will pay off in multiple ways --- helping you define, strategise, and execute a campaign that will work.

Analysis
After you've defined and executed your web marketing strategy, ongoing analysis will tell you what's going well and what isn't going so well. Info gathered for internet marketing campaigns can help you with improvements and can also help you fuel future campaigns as well.

Reputation and Relationship Development & Management
Work to develop a great reputation online. Establish yourself as a professional and establish your company's presence as one that believes in customer experience, value, and service.

Online success needs more that just development of a reputation and / or a brand. It also requires that you nurture relationships. Social marketing is a two way street. So is blogging. Customers are looking for value and this can help to establish trust. Nurturing online reputation and relationships can equate to trust and success in gathering subscribers and followers to your website. Those subscribers and followers could become future clients and sources of word of mouth referrals.

Again, there are many facets to internet marketing and taking a step at a time can help you success. Regardless of whether you're embarking on a campaign on your own or getting help and whether you're new to this or not, taking steps toward increasing your online presence is exciting and can pay off huge dividends.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Your Internet Marketing Consultant Needs to Be More Than A Motivational Speaker

Have you been searching for help with your online marketing? You may be wise to hire a skilled consultant who can help you unleash the true power of the web. Skills are important and internet marketing consultants should know their stuff. They can often articulate themselves well. But they need to do more than just "sell" you on what they can do for your marketing efforts. An internet marketing consultant needs to be able to demonstrate their expertise and show you real results as well.

Hiring the right person or company to help you with your website advertising and sales strategy is important. You want your business to grow and you want to receive a great return on whatever investment you need to make. Neither the most expensive nor the most inexpensive consultancy firm is necessarily the right firm for your goals, though. Take the time to find the right person for the job by being certain that they'll deliver more than a motivational speech about how wonderful it is to undertake an online marketing campaign. Fab that the consultant talks the talk; but can they walk the walk?

Online and Business Expertise

What sort of internet marketing expertise does this consultant have? Do they seem to know what they're talking about? Are they using cutting edge techniques for areas such as: article marketing, on page optimisation, off page optimisation, and web design? What's their business expertise like? Have they got any familiarity with a company such as yours?

Demonstrated Results

Does the internet marketing consultant have positive testimonials and a portfolio of work that shows that they can do what they say they're capable of doing? When it comes to spending money and to putting your business in the hands of someone else, you'll want to see case studies.

Guarantees

No internet marketing consultant can realistically guarantee the "moon", especially with unpredictable and uncontrollable factors in internet marketing but guaranteed satisfaction, increased search engine rankings, and demonstrable results are essential.

When choosing your consultant, you'll want to know that they know their stuff. You'll also want to feel good about their communication style. Motivational isn't bad but promises shouldn't be empty ones. The wrong online marketing approach could fall flat and result in a waste of your money. Or, even worse, it could result in harmful damage to your website's rankings and your company's reputation with customers and with search engines.

The right approach is important. A successful internet marketing consultant will work within the parameters of search engine guidelines and will work with both your business and your customers' best interests in mind. Have you been searching for help with your online marketing? You may be wise to hire a skilled consultant who can help you unleash the true power of the web. Skills are important and internet marketing consultants should know their stuff. They can often articulate themselves well. But they need to do more than just "sell" you on what they can do for your marketing efforts. An internet marketing consultant needs to be able to demonstrate their expertise and show you real results as well.

Hiring the right person or company to help you with your website advertising and sales strategy is important. You want your business to grow and you want to receive a great return on whatever investment you need to make. Neither the most expensive nor the most inexpensive consultancy firm is necessarily the right firm for your goals, though. Take the time to find the right person for the job by being certain that they'll deliver more than a motivational speech about how wonderful it is to undertake an online marketing campaign. Fab that the consultant talks the talk; but can they walk the walk?

Online and Business Expertise


What sort of internet marketing expertise does this consultant have? Do they seem to know what they're talking about? Are they using cutting edge techniques for areas such as: article marketing, on page optimisation, off page optimisation, and web design? What's their business expertise like? Have they got any familiarity with a company such as yours?

Demonstrated Results

Does the internet marketing consultant have positive testimonials and a portfolio of work that shows that they can do what they say they're capable of doing? When it comes to spending money and to putting your business in the hands of someone else, you'll want to see case studies.

Guarantees

No internet marketing consultant can realistically guarantee the "moon", especially with unpredictable and uncontrollable factors in internet marketing but guaranteed satisfaction, increased search engine rankings, and demonstrable results are essential.

When choosing your consultant, you'll want to know that they know their stuff. You'll also want to feel good about their communication style. Motivational isn't bad but promises shouldn't be empty ones. The wrong online marketing approach could fall flat and result in a waste of your money. Or, even worse, it could result in harmful damage to your website's rankings and your company's reputation with customers and with search engines.

The right approach is important. A successful internet marketing consultant will work within the parameters of search engine guidelines and will work with both your business and your customers' best interests in mind.

Organic Internet Marketing - Get More Results for Less

Organic internet marketing results in your prospective customers finding your company when they look for the thing they want. This marketing method can encompass a lot of work but once you reach the goal of being listed as highly relevant to strategic keyword phrases in your industry, it can be much simpler to reach your goals.

A lot of consumers today look to search engines to connect them with their desires. The check search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others. They also check websites, such as social networking sites, that could point them to links and to advertisements. Getting listed for the phrases your prospects are surfing for could help you get more customers. And if you work at it organically, it could cost you less money to attract customers.

Organic SEO Benefits

There are many facets to internet marketing but organic SEO (search engine optimisation) could be the most beneficial for an online business. Whilst paid advertising does have its merits, perceived relevancy in a number 1 position in Google's search engine results pages could be very powerful. Most consumers will be more trusting of an "I feel lucky' click rather than a "sponsored" one. It's not a bad idea to do both but it's definitely a good idea to take a serious attempt at ranking well organically.

Save Money On Marketing


And, in terms of your marketing spend, organic internet marketing costs a substantial amount less than a typical paid advertising campaign. Not only will you be seen as highly relevant to your subject matter but each visitor to your site won't cost a fee. Pay per click campaigning can quickly add up and it could take a lot of testing and tweaking to find the right keyword / ad blend to achieve results.

SEM vs SEO - Guarantees?

Search engine marketing is a viable internet marketing technique. Sponsored advertising can be highly effective but it can also be highly expensive. Campaigns often operate on a pay per click and there's no guarantee that the click will result in a sales.

With organic search engine rankings there are also no guarantees that a click will result in a sale but with this sort of traffic, there is no cost to you to receive a website visitor. The rankings attract visitors and then you can work on converting them into customers. Yes, it could take time, effort, and money to get your site listed at the top of the search engines but the rewards of these efforts could be substantial with a lower TCO than sponsored ads.

Thursday 23 December 2010

Expand Your Internet Marketing Horizons and Try Blog Advertising

With the advent of the cyberspace age in the 1980's, internet marketing was born. As more and more people signed on online, the more business advertising grew. Whilst television, radio and print ads are still quite effective ways of reaching the average consumer, technology is the wave of the future. The introduction of the web log or blog has really revolutionised the way products and services are promoted online. Defining Blog Advertising Because a blog is an all-purpose vehicle serving as a voice, a platform and a way to send a memo out to the world, it makes sense as a business owner to take advantage of blog advertising. You should tie your blog to your company website, offering breaking news of new products and services as well as insight into the company itself. Or, you might consider being a guest blogger on other websites that complement your business. For instance, if you own a string of beauty salons, you might blog for a fashion hair magazine or one of the top beauty supply places in your area. To tie into your blog, advertising makes sense. These can be banners or small ads placed on the sides or at the top or bottom of the page. Direct links to your products and services you mention in your blog can be placed within the body of your writing. Tying into what you say in your blog with your company's products and services is an important step in internet marketing. Benefits of Blog Advertising Besides the entire world as your audience when you create a blog, advertising through it can hold a number of advantages. For instance, you can boost web traffic to your company website and gain a new customer base. You will also be able to better translate those visits to your blog into real sales, thereby reducing your clicking costs to a minimum. Finding a target audience for your company products and services becomes easier with blog advertising. This type of marketing is specific and more precise than traditional ways of advertising such as radio, newspapers, television and magazines. When someone finds your blog, chances are they are already interested in what you have to say and therefore would be more likely to follow the links or click the ads to purchase what your company has to offer. The final reason why blog advertising makes sense, no matter what the size of your business, is because it offers a continuous source of advertising. As long as you continue with your blogging and updating the ads and links associated with it, you will always draw in new web visitors and have the opportunity to translate those visitors into future sales. In the world of internet marketing, this constant source of potential customers is a key factor to overall success in this technological era.

Thursday 14 January 2010

Doing Company Marketing Through Social Media? Get Info and Manage Your Reputation, too

How do you manage your online reputation? If you’re using social media sites to help you with company marketing campaigns, you should also consider using them to help you with your reputation management as well as data mining needs. Social marketing tools can provide a lot of valuable information to you about your customers, your prospects, what people think and say about your brand, and about succeeding online and offline. Using social media for business is an excellent step toward effectively marketing online. Many successful businesses use tools such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such tools to reach people who use them in their daily life and those people, who could be customers might be interested in connecting with you through those tools. In fact, you can often use the tools to find new potential customers as well. A lot of companies use Facebook fan pages, post on a company Twitter account, and use social bookmarking services to help them draw attention to articles, blog posts, and press releases. More company marketing campaigns than ever use many of these tools to push out information. But some forget to use them to mine for information as well. Social Media and Data Mining You can gather business intelligence through these tools. Find out: • Who is linking to your site • Who is talking about your products and / or services (and what they’re saying) • Who might be a good candidate to market to, based on user preferences and keywords used You can also use these tools to build authority in your niche. By developing a list of followers and interacting with them, you can do a good deal of relationship marketing and the great thing about the venue is that everything you do can: attract new customers, improve your SEO (search engine optimisation and traffic levels), and help you increase your sales. Because social media tools optimise your site while real-time conversations happen, results can be surprising. Use these tools to talk to others, to find who to talk to, to learn what’s being said about your brand, you, and your industry, and even make direct sales as a result of a tweet, re-tweet, or social bookmarking ‘thumbs up’. Is it any wonder that so many companies use social media tools for marketing purposes? It’s important that you learn how to capitalise on these tools. Don’t jump in head first! There are “wrong” and ineffective ways of using social media. Getting solid advice about a good company marketing plan to launch will help you take advantage of the amazing free tools that are out there.

Thursday 10 September 2009

How Can An Offline Business Use Internet Marketing to Their Advantage?

Should bricks and mortar businesses use internet marketing techniques? Will they help you grow your business?



If you're an offline business, you might not believe that you need to do internet marketing. But if you don't, you're probably missing the boat on opportunities for growth. Even if you don't sell anything online, you can benefit from having an online presence for your customers and your prospective customers, too.

People who are your potential customers are probably searching the internet to find out where to get whatever it is that you are selling. People today use the web as their personal shopper. Even if they're looking for a taxi, a pizza shop that delivers, or a salon to get their hair done, they're looking on the Internet for phone numbers, addresses, and recommendations.

This isn't just happening with teens and young adults either. The largest demographic of shoppers for anything and everything that's for sale (products and services alike) are Mothers and the vast majority of Mums in the free world have a computer that they use as a time saver to help them.

They use computers to read product reviews, look for skilled professionals, and to read recommendations from other Mums who talk about what they buy and use. People in all demographics want to know who they're buying from as well so they like to research local companies for more information.

If you're doing internet marketing you're also going to take opportunities to communicate with your customers (and prospective customers) because you can use tools to remind people who you are and what you sell. Internet marketing techniques like newsletters, e-mail marketing, white papers, and other marketing tools can help you communicate continually with your clients and today's tools let you put that process on autopilot so that very little work needs to be done by you but with the result that you'll gain more exposure for your business and improve brand loyalty as well. If you're having a big sale, you can tell your customers. If you want to talk about a new product you're carrying, you can send out an announcement. You can create a blog for your website that lets you talk about what you sell and this can help you bring increased business to your doorstep.

Not only can you market to your existing demographic with the internet but you can also learn more about your customers through patterns and data related to your website. The internet is a phenomenal business intelligence tool.

Internet marketing is something that's not an exact science but it's something that you can definitely make headway with, especially if you get expert advice. This can come in the form of books, newsletters, blogs, and through internet marketing consultant services. An experienced internet marketing consultant can look at your business and help you create a marketing plan that suits your business model and improves your chances of growth, profitability, and success.