You started a business, you got a website created, and you are ready to open up your internet doors. But wait. What’s that sound? Its crickets… You thought that if you built it, they will come?
Reality is this. There are billions (if not trillions) of web pages on the net. Even if yours had the nicest design, it wouldn’t mean a thing if the customer could not find you. Internet marketing is fairly simple though. I am not saying that to dilute what us marketers do. But for someone like you who is searching for DIY marketing tips, I am here to tell you that you can achieve the success that you are looking for.
Internet marketing takes a lot of time. This isn’t something that you can do in your spare time. Forget what those infomercials tell you about how you can work part time and make millions of dollars with the e-commerce website that they just sold you. The fact is that in order to achieve fast sales, you need to pay for marketing. With e-commerce, pay-per-click is a necessity. You have to sign up with Google Adwords, and have a budget of at least $300 per month just to get a couple of sales. The higher your marketing budget, the more sales you will get. If you don’t have a budget, then you have to rely on nothing more than free marketing methods. And those take time.
Your free internet marketing campaign needs to include the following:
- Social Networking: Without joining and participating in social networks, you are leaving a huge market of potential clients/customers on the table. Join Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, Diigo, and any other social network you can find. Post on these sites, and network with others. It will turn into lots of free traffic for your website.
- Search Engine Optimization: This is a must. If your website is not search engine friendly, then you don’t really stand a chance in search engine results when competing with other similar companies. Hire a professional to optimize your website. I am one of those professionals. We are everywhere. We are watching you
- Expert Articles & Press Releases: You need to become an expert in your field. Whatever you are in business for, you need to come up with topics about and write articles that appeal to your customer. You can then post those articles on free article websites and get exposure. They allow you to post a credit under the article that will help bring traffic to your website. Some article websites also pay YOU for the articles (i.e. Associated Content). You can also post free press releases on websites specifically for this purpose. They make their money from the Adsense and other ad revenue, and your name or company name brings them search engine traffic.
- Directory Listings: These aren’t very important anymore, but there are people who use them still. They are a source of traffic, and link building.
These four methods will get you started. It doesn’t sound like much now, but wait until you start doing these things. You will find that they take up a good chunk of your life. Of course, you can pay a professional like me to handle these tasks for you. If you decide to diy, you will pick up additional methods during your learning process.






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