Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing Explained: What You Need to Know Now to Succeed

Most people will tell you Internet marketing involves the strategies and tactics used to generate website visitors (traffic) and that’s often as far as it goes.

What I tell my clients is that online marketing is about more than just getting people to a website. It involves getting the right kinds of visitors and then getting those visitors to do something when they get to your site (like make a purchase or fill out a lead capture form). When this is all done properly, the end result is that you should make a profit in the end and all of the results should be tracked and monitored and improved upon along the way.

Said in a different way, here’s the formula I follow when working with clients:

Web visitors + conversion = profits.*

*Hint: this is your first Internet Marketing Tip

That’s it. That’s the magic formula. More traffic, more leads, more sales. The most important thing your site can do for you is convert traffic into leads, sales and profits.

So how do you get there? The next step is just putting the pieces in place, in the right order and getting people to take the actions you want them to take, again, and again, and again….

Let’s take a quick look at each part of the puzzle:

1. Internet Marketing Strategy & Research: This is where we’ll start

It’s key to note that more important than the tactics we’ll use to get traffic is the thought, planning, research and time put into understanding your business, your customers and your website. This is often the most important part of any project and is a part I place emphasis on. I also take time to insure we’re both on the same page and that I understand you and your goals before I ever suggest any of the tactics that follow below. (Unless of course you want to pay me to shut up and take orders! You should know of course that I don’t take orders very well…which means I’ll end up spending time getting to know you and your business at the beginning anyway.)

If you like the sounds of that, then keep reading.

If you’re bored by now and want to get cracking, then get in touch already!

2. How to Ramp Up the Traffic Machine and Get People to Your site, now!

I can help you get more traffic to your website using a variety of strategies and tactics; however, I specialize in the following:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Paid Online Advertising or  (Google Adwords  Pay-Per-Click Marketing PPC)
  • Social Media Marketing SMM
  • Email Marketing
  • Blogging and blog marketing (part of SMM)

Depending on your unique situation, your site and the product or service you’re offering there may be other tactics we should look at such as affiliate marketing, content generation and syndication, online press releases and such, however, once we start a discussion I will take a more in depth look at your business and we can decide from there what’s best.

3. So What Comes Next? Converting Traffic into Sales

Nothing happens until a sale is made (or an email sign up happens, or one of your lead capture forms is filled out or someone calls you).

Converting traffic into a lead or sale is what you want to have happen after you get lots of targeted traffic to your website. This is where the rubber hits the road.

I work weekly on improving my skills at getting people to take action once they visit a website; skills such as copy writing, understanding traffic patterns from website analytics reports, and how other sites close sales and capture leads online etc. I then take this knowledge and apply it to each client I work with (that could be you!).

What it all boils down to, is that you need to have some way, possibly several ways, of converting your traffic into some kind of action that can be measured and that results in your business making money. Otherwise everything I do is a waste!

Since you’re busy building your business, I’ve taken the liberty of learning how to convert traffic for you. Easy hey? (You can tell me what a great guy I am after I start getting results for you….)

4. Make Money (Profit!)

Making sure you do all of the above at a profit is another key point. Anyone can get traffic to a website, but can you get this traffic so that it’s targeted and costs a reasonable amount so that you’re making money from it? That’s the whole point right?

Part of how I accomplish this is covered in my next point:

5. It’s all about ROI baby! A.K.A Monitoring and Tracking Results

Without monitoring and tracking results any progress you make is going to be hit and miss. That’s why I track everything. It’s the only way to insure you’re getting a good ROI from your site and your marketing.

Here’s your second Internet marketing tip by the way: install Google Analytics now, if you haven’t done so already.

Google Analytics is a free website activity tracking system from Google that will record just about everything that happens on your site including how many visitors you’re getting, what towns, cities and countries they are coming from, where they visited your site from, what keywords they’re using and the list goes on. It’s an absolutely critical part of the web marketing puzzle and if all you do is this one thing today you’re taking a big step in the right direction. I insure all my clients are up and running on Google Analytics before doing anything else for them as from day one, I want to insure I know and they know what’s going on so it can be measured, tracked, and we can learn from it an improve upon the results.

6. What to Do Next: Take Action Now!