internet marketing

With the plethora of information products on internet marketing including e-books, videos and DVD’s that are either free or paid, you could easily spend the rest of your business life reading, watching, and listening all about internet marketing tactics and strategies and be no further forward as a result of information overload or not knowing what action you should be taking and when.

If you are new to internet marketing or trying to apply all the information you have gathered, it is important to pay attention to the sound internet marketing tips and advice that is out there. However, building on your internet marketing strategy one step at a time will bring you more profitable results than trying to implement everything at once with no real idea of what is working and what isn’t.

The first step is to dispel all the myths that there is some magic formula or some secret only known by the select few internet marketing gurus. Ignore totally any emails you get or websites you come across that tell you that there is such secret.

The second step is to realize that out of all the various internet marketing strategies and internet marketing tools that do work, some will work for you and others may not.

Rather than trying to get to grips with everything to do with internet marketing, develop an internet marketing plan. It doesn’t need to be complex. You know your business and you know your niche market. Do your due diligence and research what is happening on the internet, not generally, but specifically within your market. For example:

• Study the competition
• Study their websites
• How are they attracting customers
• What internet marketing techniques are they using
• Are they using affiliate programs
• Are they using article marketing
• What the most common keyword phrases are searched for
• Are they using pay per click campaigns
• Are there any press releases to study
• Do they publish newsletters and ezines

The purpose of this step is not to copy exactly what your competition is doing but rather to decide what elements you could include in your internet marketing plan. Your decisions may be based on budget restraints or lack of a particular skill set.

There are millions of web pages on the internet and, regardless of the niche within which you wish to promote your products or services, you are going to find competition. Some of those competitors may have been around for some time and have a strong website presence. It is only through the application of effective internet marketing strategies and the use of internet marketing tools that you will be able to compete and bring enough visitors to your website.

Before investing in expensive internet marketing software or internet marketing services take the time to get some of the basics right first. When you take the step to launch your website as part of your internet marketing campaign it is very important that you consider the following:

Why do people search the internet? They have a want or a need. They are looking for highly relevant information to help them meet that want or need. If you don’t provide it they simply go to the next website.

Keep updating your website with high quality and relevant information. Your site visitors will love it and so will the search engines.

You want your site visitors to stay on your site for as long as possible to maximize your chances of them making a purchase. In order to achieve that:

• Your site must be easy to navigate through
• Keep the design and layouts simple or they will go elsewhere
• Give them a good experience or they will go elsewhere
• If you sell anything other than quality, they may buy once but they will never come back
• If you are selling products or services, make it easy for your visitors to buy. Again, if they get confused they will go elsewhere
• Project your business honestly and professionally

Another step you can take if you are new to internet marketing is to ask questions and gather information from those who have already achieved success through internet marketing. Fortunately there is a free and easy way to do that as long as you are prepared to put in the time and effort.

Join internet marketing forums, especially if they are targeted to your chosen niche market. Members are on these forums because, like you, they want to find out how to make their internet marketing plans more effective or they are successful and they want to share that with others. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about your internet marketing strategies. Then, when you are successful, you can pay it back by telling the forum members how you made internet marketing work for you.

Building on your internet marketing strategy one step at a time also means not trying to implement a whole bunch of internet marketing techniques in one go where you don’t know what is actually working and what isn’t. Learn how to use one internet marketing technique well and then when you are seeing positive results from implementing one internet marketing strategy you can learn how to benefit from implementing others.