With the plethora of websites online and hundreds added each day, how are you going to separate your website from the others? When I began my first online venture I was so excited to have my website up and running and I remember thinking "wow, the toughest part is behind me", referring to finally getting the aesthetics and functionality of the website just how I wanted them. I thought that marketing the website would be the easy part. Boy was I wrong.
My site was up and running and was designed very professionally. I had no doubt that visitors would be confident in my ability to deliver top notch services. The only problem was that I had very few visitors. I made a couple of ignorant marketing mistakes early on that cost me.
One mistake was simply not planning. I had no plan in place on how I would go about marketing the website and reaching my target market. I really had not even truly defined my target market. Sure, I thought about it a lot, but I had not written down who my target market consisted of. I find that actually writing down your goals in business and life is key to your reaching them. By writing down what you wish to accomplish you can have your plan there in front of you and it makes it easy to analyze and ask yourself if you are taking the correct steps to achieve your goals. How on earth could I have expected to successfully market the website if I had not defined my niche market and written out my course of action on how to position my business within this group? So what sort of things should you think about when planning your marketing strategy? Here's a basic list to get you on the right track.
Basic Steps to Planning Your Marketing Strategy
1. Decide whether you are going to sell products, services or both.
2. Test the waters to ensure that there is a legitimate demand for your product and/or service. Do this by simply talking to friends and family and ask them if they would find your offerings useful. Also, make up a short questionnaire and have people fill them out. On the questionnaire include questions pertaining to the problem that you are solving with your products/services. This will give you insight into the number of people that are experiencing this problem as well.
Also on this questionnaire include questions such as "What magazines/newspapers do you read?" "What type of websites do you most often view?" What we are now doing is ensuring that there is indeed a market for our products/services and at the same time gathering valuable information on how to place our products in front of them and others like them, once we bring our products/services to the market. Use your imagination and ask other insightful questions that will give you additional information into their lifestyle, shopping habits, and tastes/preferences. Now we have proof that there is a demand for our products/services and the information on how to target this market.
3. Get your website up and running and optimize it for the search engines before submitting it. Please see my article for more on this topic.
4. Take the information you gathered in step two and decide how you will place your products/services in front of your niche market.
An additional mistake was submitting my site to the search engines before it was fully optimized. It is much easier to achieve a great ranking if you optimize your site first and then submit it rather than submitting your site and then trying to pull it up to a higher ranking. So how can you optimize your website for a better ranking in the search engines? This is a topic in and of itself and entire books have been written on this subject. Below are four basic steps to get you on the right track. These four steps were taken from Obtaining a #1 Ranking in the Search Engines by Ryan Allis.
I highly recommend this book and it can be found at http://www.search-engines-guide.com/.
Four Basic Steps of Page Optimization
1. Select the keywords you want to focus on.
2. Create an optimized page for each of your targeted keywords by having ample page copy, focusing on keyword prominence, and using related page names, proper meta-tags, proper title tags, proper alt-tags, heading tags, and text links.
3. Avoid dynamic database-driven content, JavaScript, keyword spamming, and multiple use of content.
4. Make sure there are lots of web sites linking to yours.
So before you embark on your e-business journey be sure to develop a marketing plan. This plan must be flexible as it will change as your business grows, but it is critical to the success of your business to identify how you will position your products/services to your target market; and remember ? optimize your website BEFORE submitting it to the search engines.
About The Author
Brandon Milford is the President of Pimil.com, a web solutions company based in Georgia, and the Marketing Director for Email Marketing Software Center, a website devoted to providing knowledge and product recommendations on permission based email marketing.
![]() |
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
Even though the days of an IPO generating millions of... Read More
Marketing should be treated like a science. If you are... Read More
Are you looking for ways of persuading your web site... Read More
Ever hear about an idea that is so simple yet... Read More
Special Article Report: Theses Keys Work!Many times over the past... Read More
'FREE' is the reason people are successful, and make a... Read More
Often there can seem to be very little difference between... Read More
Now, I'm a firm believer in knowing what you're getting... Read More
We know once you have a room full of guests... Read More
The phenomenal growth of ecommerce lures more and more people... Read More
What is Viral Marketing?"Viral marketing is word of mouth marketing... Read More
For the last couple weeks I have been running a... Read More
If you are convinced by now that you wish to... Read More
Niche marketing has always been a key any success in... Read More
I would like to share with you one simple stratergy... Read More
I was at a meeting the other day when one... Read More
Do you know the secret or internet marketing strategy behind... Read More
You can magnify and expand your business if you have... Read More
It never ceases to amaze me how many otherwise intelligent... Read More
Online advertising traffic leaves when advertisers don't make it... Read More
Copyright 2005 Richard KeirIn a recent article I talked about... Read More
The word "guru", in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is defined as:1.... Read More
Well, I'd first like to talk about what exactly has... Read More
Niche Marketing, in simple terms is all about targeting hot... Read More
How successful is your online business? Are you achieving the... Read More
When you start your online business, you will go through... Read More
Still marketing through press releases, networking groups, and talks to... Read More
Today I was checking out Michelle's A Small Victory. There... Read More
Several months ago I went on the cruise from hell.... Read More
Marketing on the internet is getting harder and harder daily.It... Read More
The average person today is exposed to a never-ending deluge... Read More
Web site marketing is the most important part of your... Read More
The secrets on how to send a floodgate of traffics... Read More
Online shopping continues to grow at leaps and bounds. Depending... Read More
A back-end product is a product that you attempt to... Read More
The Public has Embraced Local Search and Want to do... Read More
Obvious Experts enjoy a compelling advantage over their competition; they're... Read More
There are numerous tools available on the Internet to assist... Read More
The web site marketing you use to promote your Internet... Read More
I recently noticed that my friend's two-year-old, Conor, is getting... Read More
Do you want to create a passive income? Are you... Read More
Hyperboles abound in Internet Marketing. Myth has its own area... Read More
Do you have marketing objectives for your Web site? With... Read More
starts when a web site is being planned... And is... Read More
Maintaining Focus is important for success in online business. One... Read More
Set up multiple simultaneous marketing campaigns with database marketing automation... Read More
I. Summary of a marketing planThe marketing planning (concretized in... Read More
More and more people are realizing that the Internet offers... Read More
Hint: don't send send your online advertising traffic to your... Read More
Many people fail to realize how they can really make... Read More
Can a 10-year-old teach you anything about Internet marketing? Until... Read More
If you have a marketing business, chances are you get... Read More
Yes folks, there is a way of making absolutely certain-sure... Read More
This is a little tip I got from Alex Sampson,... Read More
The number one concern for Internet sales is your marketing... Read More
Three Ways to Get Top Quality Content for Your Niche... Read More
Copyright 2005 Kurma GroupContent, content, content - everybody's talking about... Read More
The day has come for your new website to go... Read More
If you've a business, you must always keep an eye... Read More
The list of promotional tools and resources available to online... Read More
The world of entrepreneurship is a difficult one full of... Read More
To market successfully you must incorporate the Internet into your... Read More
The story of how Hotmail moved from zero to a... Read More
Did you ever wish that you could sit at the... Read More
There are many ways to make money on the internet.... Read More
Gasp! Choke! Gag! That's how people react when you tell... Read More
Internet Marketing |