4 Secrets of Successful Internet Marketing

I believe that Internet Marketing is one of the most important Marketing tools for a business...and that its importance will only increase with time.

It has been fascinating to observe the immense rise in popularity of the internet over the last few years. Its impossible to really say how many websites exist because different regions have different servers...and as no-one really owns and runs the internet the actual number of sites remains a mystery.

In February 2007, the Netcraft Web Server Survey found over 108 million distinct websites but of course with the ongoing addition of new sites this was out of date as soon as the information was published!

Others suggest that there are now over 9 billion individual web pages globally...which is truly staggering.

Whilst this has been happening, there has been a constant pull away from traditional places to advertise, such as newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. So it will come as no surprise that this advertising activity has moved over to the internet as a way of targeting new business.

I believe that this revolution in advertising will continue at a very fast pace.

But what does this mean for the small or medium sized business?

From the statistics I have shared it would appear almost impossible to make your business website stand out from a very, very large crowd.

And yet, studies show that 40% of internet searches are for local products or services.

With 60% of the UK’s population now regularly using the internet it is evident that people are using it more and more to find local commercial information.

So the secret to gaining new customers appears to be resting on whether your new website can be promoted to access traffic that is within your local area. I believe this is something that anyone can do and will share with you how to do it.

But, I have to admit, as a small business, our first attempts at developing a website to promote the company’s activities were pretty disastrous. Whilst we had produced an attractive and very user-friendly site, to our dismay we did not generate much visitor traffic.

By having a website, it certainly gave us a degree of credibility with clients, but it attracted little new business for us.

The cost of developing a website and the time investment coupled with a fear of failure is probably why many SME’s have still to embrace building a website and gaining an internet presence.

Whilst our experience was painful, it was also a really fantastic learning experience. By going back to basics and really finding out what we needed to do in order to make the internet work for us, we have come a long way and achieved far greater success as a result.

So what are the 4 secrets that you can follow?

#1. Use the right Keywords
These are particular words that people may use when searching the internet for information. For instance, if you want to find a repair garage, you might type in...

“Where can I get my car repaired in the Rutland?”

The Search engine being used will then reference and list sites that have chosen the following keywords...Car, Repair or Rutland.

The construction of your site will allow you to choose Keywords for each page on your site.

Now, some keywords are very popular and will appear on many, many websites. So choosing which words to use becomes very important, as you need to balance the demand for that word with the number of sites that supply information on that subject so that you the visitor traffic that you want.

#2. Content is everything...well almost!
To gain traffic, the larger Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask and Live must believe that your site will have relevance and interest for people who are seeking information whilst “surfing” the net. The Search Engines survive by advertising revenue and they know that people are more likely to click on their adverts if they have stayed on the sites and found their visit useful.

So the Search Engines will improve the profile and ranking of a particular site….if the content of the site is relevant and interesting to the visitor. And the higher the page is listed on the search, the greater the traffic to the site. (Few if any of us look beyond the first page of results on any internet search so being listed on page 4 will crucify your visitor statistics).

Building interesting and relevant site content has a powerful influence on your visitor traffic. Your site certainly needs at least 10 pages of approximately 1,000 words and ideally over time this should be increased to about 50 pages.

#3. Your site needs good links
Search engines use software tools called “Spiders” to investigate your site for interest and ongoing changes. When a spider arrives at your site is very important it can easily navigate itself around. This means that the site needs to be constructed in a logical manner…as you would expect within a library.

The pages in your site need to be linked* together to allow this construction to work and one way of achieving this is to have a site map. This is a page where each of the individual sections on the site and the pages within each section are listed, rather like an index. Clicking on each of the links will take the visitor directly to that page they are looking for.

(*A link or hyperlink is an electronic tag that you can click on using your PC mouse and it will send you to the specific page address you are looking for).

It’s also important that you gain quality inward links to your site. If your website is shown by a link on an entirely different site, it indicates to the Spider that someone believes that your site is of potential interest to their visitors. The more external links detected, the greater it confirms to the spider that your site is both relevant and interesting…the criteria which leads to search ranking!

This is probably a subject on its own…but the easiest way of getting an external link is to register your site with one of the very many Directories that exist on the Internet. But beware; Google has recently downgraded some sites that have paid Directories for an external link, so my advice would be to target the free sites first.

#4. Search Engine Optimisation
There are many people out there who will offer to perform search Engine Optimisation for you and charge you a great deal for the privilege.

If you have followed the first three secrets of gaining visitor traffic, it accounts for much of what you can do and what an SEO provider will do for you as well!

So unless you really can’t be bothered with the hassle...please save your money.

There are additional steps you can take to put your site into a position where it is optimised for Search Engines. This would include:

• Signing up to Web Forums where your site gets a link.
  As you interact on the Forum (rather like a chat room where you are having an online conversation with someone) so you will gain additional traffic to your site.

• Gain links from Social Networking sites such as Facebook, MSN, Viadeo etc.

• Introduce a Blog to your site
  This is short for “Web log,” a specialized site that allows an individual or group of individuals to share a running log of events and personal insights with online audiences. Blogs with political or current-events themes have grown in popularity and become “soap boxes” for instant mass-audience commentary. Businesses used to gain visitor traffic and customers by encouraging them to sign up to newsletters which where emailed to them. This method of communication is a little dated and people generally find newsletters boring. A blog is a little more “instant” in its approach and allows the visitor to keep a choice as to whether they read it or not.

  The second time around we have chosen to develop our own website. Whilst this has taken time and had its own frustrations it has also been a triumph. I should emphasis that none of us are IT “techies”, so it is possible for novices to the web. By doing it this way we saved the direct costs of employing someone to do it (estimated at £4,000) but if this approach isn’t for you then I would encourage you to research a professional to do it for you.

But please be conscious of the fact that people are increasingly using the internet to research before they buy and if you have a website and have followed the secret rules that I have shared then you will have a great chance of gaining some of this business.

Happy Marketing

Paul Robinson

Business Solutions Wizard
Leading Business Expertise and Coaching Support to Help You Grow Your Sales and Increase your Profits