Online Marketing Article by Michael Dylan |
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Michael Dylan
Internet Entrepreneur and Businessman
Michael Dylan is a successful entrepreneur
and business enthusiast. He has owned
and managed several successful business
online and offline.
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Internet Marketing and SEO for Small Businesses
- Article by Michael Dylan |
Whether
your whole business is online or it is just
to direct visitors to your bricks and mortar
business, marketing it properly online is
important. This does not mean that you have
to spend a million dollars doing it, or
that you have to receive a degree to do
it yourself. Obviously there will be differences
for different industries and professions,
but there are some basic steps that anyone
can do to improve their results online.
For example, if you are trying to sell Viagra
online you probably will have to
spend a million dollars and get a
marketing degree to get decent results because
it is such a competitive industry. This
article is aimed at small businesses that
possibly designed their own website or paid
a designer that knew nothing about Internet
marketing to do it.
Make
sure your website looks professional
Treat your website like you would treat
your business premises in real life. Make
sure it looks professional and is designed
properly. Presentation is a major factor
in deciding whether or not to do business
with a company. If you have no design skills
and your website looks like it was designed
by a four year old, it will reflect badly
on your name and may scare away potential
customers. Many website designers will design
your site to begin with and can teach you
how to make updates by yourself, so it is
just a once off expense.
Change
your page titles
A lot of small business have every page
title of their website the same. Search
engines like Google and Yahoo place some
importance in what is written in the title
of every page on your site. So rather than
just having the name of your business there,
change it describe what is actually on each
page.
"JoeBloe's" is a much less effective
homepage title than "JoeBloe's Business
Coaching". Help the search engines
out by describing what is on the page with
a few focused keywords that sum up each
page, and they may help you out by sending
more visitors your way.
Learn
some basic Search Engine Optimization skills
(SEO)
Improving page titles is one of the first
steps of basic search engine optimization,
but there also a lot more simple and effective
methods to help improve your search engine
rankings. Things like using text for site
navigation rather than images, using keywords
throughout each page, and using internal
linking effectively are all easy steps that
can be taken.
Submit
your site to industry portals and web directories
Get to know the related websites in your
industry and try to get them to link to
you. One reason for this is the direct traffic,
but it can also help with your search engine
rankings. The more links that you have pointing
towards your website, the more important
it looks to search engines.
An easier, but less effective way is to
submit your website to web directories.
Directories that focus on a specific niche
are better than general web directories
and paid web directories are generally (but
not always) better than free web directories.
Start
a newsletter
Spammers have made this technique less effective,
but it is still a very powerful way to develop
a relationship with potential customers.
There are companies like Your
Mailing List Provider that make it affordable
and easy to setup and send a company newsletter.
They're great for letting customers know
of new products, for letting them know about
sales, or for just reminding them that you
still exist.
Don't
be tempted by the dark side!
There are a lot of tempting tactics and
tools out there that will promise you the
world or will lead you down the wrong Internet
marketing path, but if your web presence
is important to you, run from their offers
and techniques. Never try to trick the search
engines with hidden text or deceptive tactics
as they are getting smarter all the time.
When you are caught abusing the system,
your site is banned from the search engine
and you end up receiving no traffic from
them! Google has some basic website tips
listed on their Webmaster
Guide that will explain what not to
do.
Start
a Blog
Starting a blog is a great way to establish
yourself as an expert in your industry.
It also gives potential customers a reason
to come back to your website. Regularly
writing about news and new products in your
industry will also make your site look more
authoritative to search engines as you will
have many pages of content focusing on your
niche.
These few steps are just a starting point
to effectively marketing your business online.
Things change very quickly online so there
are always new and improved ways of marketing,
but even if you followed just a few of the
steps above you will be sure to see the
number of your visitors increase.
"If you do build a great experience,
customers tell each other about that. Word
of mouth is very powerful." Jeff
Bezos Quote
This article by Michael Dylan may not be
reproduced online in part or whole. Copyright
© Woopidoo.com
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