When it comes to marketing your business online, it can all be a bit overwhelming at first, there are so many different ways to build traffic that it can be difficult to know where to start. So for those of you who are just starting, here’s a quick list to help you set up a successful internet marketing campaign right from the start.

SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a long term aspect of internet marketing. There is a lot to learn about SEO, but the best thing to do at first is to start writing content for your website, content that will be helpful for your customers. A website with very little text is much less likely to rank well than one with lots.

Getting good search engine ranks might take several months, but once you have achieved good results, you will start to see free traffic coming into your site, which will give your business a fantastic foundation for future growth.

PPC

Pay per click advertising programs such as Google’s Adwords allow you to buy a spot in the search results. These programs are great for small businesses, since you don’t need a big budget. You pay a few pence (depending on search terms) for each customer that clicks on one of your Ads.

PPC can get you results much faster than most other methods of online marketing, but you have to keep a constant check on it to make sure you stay profitable. Getting your first campaign up and running is pretty simple, but once you are done, make sure you read up on PPC metrics and learn how to tweak your Ads for more success.

Social media

Your use of social media really depends on who your customers are. There are an awful lot of social media tools to choose from now a-days. My tip is to pick one platform for the time being and get to grips with it before moving on to other tools.

Twitter is my personal favourite, but that is just my own preference. When you are trying to market your own business, it is important not to get bogged down by the endless choices. Trying to utilize every social platform at once can turn a successful internet marketing strategy into a recipe for failure.

Blogging

Blogging combines elements of social media with SEO. Starting a blog is actually a fantastic way to make your SEO efforts a lot easier. You don’t have to even use a blog as a blog in the traditional sense, you can structure it like a normal website if you prefer.

The biggest benefit of a blog is that it makes adding new content much simpler, so even a non-technical person can add content regularly. This will help you to get better SEO results.

A blog will also allow you to integrate various social tools too, there are so many free plugins that you can add to a WordPress blog that you will soon start to question why anyone would not have a blog.

Email

By the time you have put in all the effort it takes to win a customer, you really should make the effort to retain that customer.

“Gaining a new customer is costly, keeping an existing customer is easy, losing a customer is permanent”

So many businesses online neglect this aspect of their internet marketing strategy, yet it is probably one of the most important things you can do for your business…

(This is yet another great reason to set up a word press blog. You can easily install a plugin that will let you keep in touch with customers without even having to think about it. You can build content (SEO), utilize social media and keep your customers coming back for more, all in one go.)

Where to start

When starting out I would really just focus on these 5 aspects. The key to having a successful internet marketing campaign from the outset is in simplicity, do the few key parts really well, and you can start making things more complicated later once you are already successful.

I hope this short introduction helped, but please get stuff in to the rest of the site for more info. Please also leave a comment and share your thoughts with other readers.

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