Now that you have your website up and running and optimized for the search engine, what marketing strategies can you use to market your business opportunity, product or services?
Again, we will focus on basic and simple proven techniques of internet marketing. If you happen to have read numerous publications, articles, books published by successful internet marketers, they are all pointing to only these proven steps. Of course, internet marketing gurus might have their own secrets that they wouldn't want to share but these strategies have been proven to be effective.
We want to share with you these strategies in very simple terms and there's no one better way to present them than this article from Mal Keenan, a successful online marketer.
Short, simple and sweet.
6 Proven Steps To Internet Marketing Success
Copyright © 2004 Mal Keenan
There is a misconception that you can come online set up a web business and be making $1000s within days. Let me put that myth to rest right away. This has not been my experience nor the experience of anyone I have come in contact with through my online endeavours.
You need to give yourself at least a year to make an online business work and budget your money accordingly. Too many times I see people ploughing a wad of cash into their businesses and again, expecting instant riches.
New marketers also make the mistake of thinking that one marketing strategy will do. Of course some avenues will produce more than others but I have found the best way is to adopt a broad based approach to your online marketing. That means spreading your time and resources over several different methods.
I will attempt to outline in this text everything I feel you need to be doing consistently to make a success of your online business.
Again I MUST point out that you need to persist in this strategy and spend your money wisely. It amazes me the amount of people who drop out after the first month or two. What do they expect, miracles? You wouldn't ditch an offline business after a month so why would you expect an online enterprise to be any different?
If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.
Bottom line is, targeted visitors = sales. This is definitely a numbers game and obviously the more targeted visitors you send to your website the more money you make. The concept is simple but you need to maintain a healthy focus to ensure that you stick this out for as long as it takes to make a profit, and progress to financial freedom online.
Here are the methods I use to send daily visitors to my sites:
1) Build Your List
It's true what they say that the money IS in the list. Most successful online marketers have large lists of targeted prospects that they can send their offers to on a regular basis. Anyone new to this business should begin to build this list immediately.
You have to start somewhere and it takes time but it is certainly worth your while to begin now and develop a lasting and trustful relationship with those list members who eventually will feel comfortable in purchasing your recommendations. When trust grows this targeted list will become a virtual money tree and make you cash at will. Some marketers are able to makes $1000s sending an email to their list, which takes little more than a few minutes to write. Can you see the power in this method?
I use a couple of different methods, online forms at all my websites encouraging prospects to add their name and email addresses plus I also purchase many of my addresses from other companies that can send me 1000s of emails for affordable prices. These addresses are spam free and can grow my list a lot quicker than I could ever do from my own websites.
I have set up some tutorials here for companies that will send you targeted visitors:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/listopt.html
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/listmedia.html
2) Pay Per Click search engines.
Over the years I have used PPCSEs to send 1000s of visitors to my sites. This is a fast track way to drive traffic to your sites. You can be up and running and getting hits in minutes.
I use http://www.overture.com, http://www.findwhat.com, and http://www.7search.com. These are three of the most popular but there are many others which you can find here:
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/
I suggest you use Wordtracker (http://www.workathomebiz.info/wordtracker.html) to accumulate as many TARGETED keywords as you can. The more targeted keywords you collect the more visitors you get.
The idea is to ensure that you are paying less for visitors on a monthly basis than the sales you make.
3) Google Adwords (http://www.google.com/ads/)
Google adwords is similar in principle to PPCSEs in that you pay for your visitors. I suggest you use Wordtracker (http://www.workathomebiz.info/wordtracker.html) to accumlate 1000s of keyword phrases.
4) Article Submissions
Submitting topical articles is one of the most affordable and at the same time effective marketing strategies I know of. For more info and the resources to do this visit here:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/articlesubmissions.html
5) Regular Search Engines
Yahoo, Google, and MSN send me as many visitors per day as any other strategy I use. It is highly recommended that you get started immediately to begin to build the online web presence of your website and thus your search engine rankings.
I have done this mostly through a reciprocal linking campaign which has had a greater effect on my search engine rankings than anything else. I employ the use of Linksmanager (http://www.workathomebiz.info/linksmanager.html) to automate my links campaign for which I pay a monthly fee or you can set up your own links manager at your own site using Kevin Ocasio's excellent Reciprocal Manager(http://www.freeadvertz.com/recipmanager.html).
For affordable search engine submission software try Web Position Gold (http://www.webpositiongolddownloads.com)
Please note: This is a long term strategy, so it will take at least a few months of persistent action to see any results at all.
6) Forum Posting
One of the greatest things that happened to me in my online career was being appointed moderator at one on the most popular online internet marketing forums. This has opened up more avenues and opportunities than any other strategy. I suggest you visit the popular, high traffic online forums daily and make it a point of sharing your experiences and giving your advice as often as possible. Get yourself seen!
The thing about this method too is that you can have a link pointing to your site in the signature of each post you make. Posting at forums will send daily traffic to your site AND the visitors will be highly targeted.
Here are two high traffic forums that I frequent:
http://www.ablake.net/forum/
http://www.howtocorp.com/forum/
This one isn't high traffic yet but I will be there to answer your questions:
http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/forum/
In conclusion:
I have been marketing online since 1998 and have tried 100s of different ways to drive targeted traffic to my websites. The above six strategies work, so I suggest you print them out and make the methods part of your daily marketing plan for the foreseeable future.
If they can work for me then they WILL work for you.
I wish you every success in your efforts.
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Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/
For a company that DOES provide support, easy to follow training and a duplicatable system join my team below:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com
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