A Step-by-step Guide to Online Marketing

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Feb,26

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7:32 pm

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As companies seek to find more effective, and less expensive, marketing methods, online marketing stands to see the biggest increase. Businesses already spend more on online marketing than they do on Radio and is set to surpass magazines by 2010 (ZenithOptmedia, 2007).  However, you can do many things to make sure your website is not lost in the clutter. Below are the top actions your business can take to increase your website exposure and increase your ROI.

1) Maintain and improve your website

Unless your business has an endless marketing budget then you need to rely on your website’s quality to drive traffic to your site.  A high-quality website doesn’t just mean something that looks pretty. It means that you have text that engages the reader, contains your keywords, and can be found by Google and other search engines. Simply put, your website needs to be designed to current industry standards with special attention to the basics like page titles, meta descriptions, accessibility, and navigation.

2) Build web presence

Once your website has the basics down you can concentrate on promoting it. Depending on your product you may want to utilize viral media sources like YouTube, MySpace or Twitter. These can be great for B2C type product lines if used in conjunction with directory placements, online press releases, online trade publications, forums and article submissions. The key is to get as many quality links to your website as possible; this will increase your search rankings. The higher your rankings are, the more traffic you will get.

3) PPC advertising

There are several PayPerClick options to choose from. The largest network consists of Google AdWords. You may have noticed these ads when you search for a product on Google and there are “sponsored links.” Adverisers pay to see their advertisement there when you search for certain keywords. This can be a very effective method to drive traffic to your website.

Note: PPC advertising is getting more expensive because of the dramatic increase in competition over the years. This could also reduce the effectiveness of your campaign if it is not monitored closely.

4) eNewsletters

Sending out eNewsletters can be a very effective way of staying in front of leads and existing clients. There are  a couple of basic guidelines when sending an eNewsletter.
a) Frequency – Choose a frequency that makes sense. If you email them too much it will reduce the effectiveness of all the newsletters
b) Content – Don’t send a newsletter for the sake of doing it. Provide your mailing list with something of interest and they will thank you for it.
c) Unsubscribe – Make sure your newsletter has an Unsubscribe option. It will help you maintain an email list that is of the highest quality and reduce bad feedback.
d) Compatibility- There are countless email programs. You need to make sure that your eNewsletter looks acceptable in the major ones like Outlook,  Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo.

5) Campaign evaluation

One of the most important part of making an online marketing campaign is measuring its results. Keeping track of keyword rankings, incoming leads, new website traffic, and sales are among the most important indicators to a successful campaign. Since online media is usually fast moving and contains many traceable activities you should be able to track the success of your campaign with much greater detail than any other media.

Josh C
http://www.articlesbase.com/online-promotion-articles/a-stepbystep-guide-to-online-marketing-725111.html

Filed under: Youtube Marketing

9 Responses to “A Step-by-step Guide to Online Marketing”

  1. Bruno, on February 26th, 2010 at 7:33 pm Said:

    What's the step-by-step process for making money online with Affiliate Marketing like ClickBank?
    Having been exploring the internet marketing field for the last 10 years, I am still very frustrated not knowing how exactly to make money online with Affiliate Programs like ClickBank or Commission Junction that’s Affiliate Marketing.
    Please, reply to me only in case you are already making tons of money as a Super Affiliate.
    In addition, please do regard me as an absolute beginner to Affiliate Marketing as I have never ever made any money with Affiliate Marketing at all.
    Obviously, the main reason I am interested in the Affiliate Marketing field is the fact that I still do not have my own products or services to sell.
    What I have realized is that there is a huge amount of scepticism among many potential Affiliates (including myself) when it comes to the important question whether or how I as an ambitious Affiliate can trust the Merchant or how I can be assured that the Merchant will morally and honestly be paying to me (or into my PayPal account) every time I refer them to a customer who then buys the Merchant’s product from my Affiliate link.
    Subsequently, my main questions are:

    How to research into, find and then select a legitimate Affiliate Program?

    How to make sure that the Mechant will really link my PayPal account correctly and properly, so that I know he or she is a genuine and professional person who won’t be cheating or stealing away my hardly earned commissions?

    How and where can I create a simple web page (landing page or squueze page) with my affiliate link? Please, once again regard me as an absolute beginner and tell me the step by step process of how to set up or create my Affiliate web page as I really do not know how to.

    How to ensure the necessary traffic of potential buyers to my Affiliate web site so that I really start seeing some concrete results that’s making money online? If it’s Pay Per Click that is a solution, please guide me step by step on how to create successful money making Google Adwords campaigns. Or, do you suggest anything better than PPC?

    Once again, I am only interested to learn from experienced money making Affiliates and Super Affiliates who have been making lots of money from the Affiliate Programs that they have joined.

    Please, do not try to sell me here any cheap ebooks or similar downloadable information products with hyped and long sales copies, because I won’t be wasting my money on these any longer.

    If you’re a genuine and successful Affiliate Marketer, please feel free to reach me on my Skype: bruno.bb100

    In advance many thanks for your kind help and advices.

    Best wishes for the New Year!!

  2. Areeba, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:35 am Said:

    There are a few good questions you bring up which I have pulled out from above and will try my best to answer them to the best of my ability.

    1) Are there any legitimate affiliate programs ?

    Yes and it would be best to create one from your website and to get your visitors to use your affiliate service and sell the product you offer. Simply just taking others products and selling them online within a squeeze page does not simply work as its all hyped to be.

    Search engines will crack down on these pages which don’t bring any value to the "conversation" on the internet.
    (Remember valuable content will bring traffic)

    2) how can I be sure I don’t get cheated ?

    The terms of service may have to be read carefully from affiliate sites in order to determine if the purchase goes through accounts on their website instead of directly being paid out by the author of the product. (its like elance they are the middle man).

    3) where can I create a simple sales page ?

    If you don’t know basic HTML there could be simple programs which can generate these pages, but it’s not advisable to use any sort of automated program to create them as major search engines may have filters to filter out certain tags/credits mentioned on the page, thus pulling your squeeze page from their index.

    4) how to gain genuine unique vistors to your page (PPC any good?)

    Valuable content is always going to be king. Having content which is being searched for will rake in visitors. You need to research white hat seo techniques. Just simply having a page online and submitting it to a few search engines doesn’t mean you will get tens or even hundreds of visitors a day.
    References :

  3. Fryed7, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:37 am Said:

    Hi there,

    I find it interesting to post such a question on something as public as Yahoo Answers: I wonder how many people will post dozens of affiliate links to GRQ programs etc!

    Personally, my experience of affiliate marketing is making a little income through Amazon Associates (laptops and books) and a Wholesale Directory. In every case, the pages with the links on weren’t especially promoting the product in question. You could call this ‘passive affiliate marketing’. I did have a lot of traffic though until I sold up.

    My current website, I’m focusing a bit more on active promotion where I feature and talk about the product in question. That way, I can shift higher-ticket items – some of my favourite affiliate programs I’ve featured here: http://www.how-to-build-a-website.co.uk/free-to-join-affiliate-programs.html

    I know you’re not going to like the paid material, but Affilorama offers a free level of membership which is quite good. They do promote their premium level of membership ($67 monthly!) and try and entice you in with one-time offers etc. but have a look at the free program. http://www.affilorama.com/

    I’ve also got rights to distribute this eBook: http://www.how-to-build-a-website.co.uk/support-files/affiliate-masters-course.pdf – It’s 152 pages long, and it helped me focus on the affiliate marketing strategy for my current site.
    References :
    http://www.how-to-build-a-website.co.uk/free-to-join-affiliate-programs.html
    http://www.affilorama.com/
    http://www.how-to-build-a-website.co.uk/support-files/affiliate-masters-course.pdf

  4. Angelina, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:39 am Said:

    I myself am a beginner but i would advice you register at warrior forum which is a free forum for affiliate marketing and everything related. Believe me, you will learn a lot of stuff there for free. The warriors(as members are called) are always helpful and this is like the biggest affiliate marketing forum, which big successful AMs use. I have been a member for 3 months or so now, and i can tell you that i have learned more in this short time than i had my entire life about AM. Good luck.
    References :
    http://www.warriorforum.com/

  5. Karam, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:41 am Said:

    I was doing hard work of finding home based jobs. Luckily I found this website: http://www.wah-jobs.info They gave me list of top companies. I clicked and find many jobs. Did one job and received my pay yesterday. Best place for home based jobs.
    References :

  6. Beststayathomemama, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:43 am Said:

    check out my blog for help

    http://www.howtomakemoneyongptsites.blogspot.com/
    References :

  7. Nikola, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:45 am Said:

    I know some great legit paid survey sites that i currently use to make some extra cash. A great one i use and enjoy is moola.com, they actually pay you to play games online. Its safe and free.
    Here is a link for an invitation to the site.
    http://www.moola.com:80/moopubs/b2b/exc/…

    Also, another one i use is gangstergreed.com. Fill out free offers and get paid with pay-pal within a couple of days for them. Totally safe and free. Fill out referrals for extra cash too.
    Here is a link to this site as well
    http://www.gangstergreed.com?r=72123

    One more site that i am currently a member of and getting paid from is awsurveys.com. Probably the easiest of the survey sites, paying you to evaluate websites and simply give your opinion on it. Get 1-25 dollars just for a couple sentences of what you think of sites. No risks and free.
    Here is a link to this site too
    http://www.AWSurveys.com/HomeMain.cfm?Re…

    Hope this helped you make some extra cash!! None of these cost money only make it.
    References :
    http://www.moola.com
    http://www.gangstergreed.com
    http://www.awsurveys.com

  8. tyfickas29, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:47 am Said:

    http://mustseeproducts.tk/ is your answer…this is my own personal website that tells you how to make pretty good and easy money online..no credit card info or anything..good for younger people without jobs..or anyone looking for a little extra cash..it also has products like ebooks and programs you might want to check out to help you become successful online with affiliate marketing and gpt sites like cashcrate..personally i reall think you should at least check it out it cant hurt to try its free..just go to this link http://mustseeproducts.tk/ and follow my tutorial and link to sign up and dominate cashcrate…hope this helps..best of luck to you!!! CHECK OUT THE PRODUCTS PAGE FOR EBOOKS AND PROGRAMS ESPECIALLY MADE TO HELP YOU WITH CLICKBANk…ALL CREATED BY SUCCESSFUL CLICKBANK AFFILIATES!!..HOPE YOU FIND SOMETHING USEFUL ON THERE!!! GOOD LUCK!!
    References :

  9. Tariq, on February 27th, 2010 at 12:49 am Said:

    eBay is a good option. Start selling stuff on it. It is flexible, easy to learn, and you can make good money.
    You can work on your schedule and do as much as you need or want to. You can fit eBay in around other things in your life.
    References :

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