When the competition is stiff, you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. You need to continually and consistently develop your internet presence. How?

Use classified ads. Pulling up "classified ads" in a search reveals 60,043 pages, all of which you'll never get to in this lifetime. SO target your efforts. Put in "Software Classfied Ads" and call up 129 pages, for targeting your message to those who will be interested in your product or service. Sifting through 129 sites is certainly better than 60,043. Then list your business, promotion, or specialty items.

Use directories. Yellow pages and white pages can also be used online. There are over 212,000 yellow pages in varying categories from music to The National Association of Women's Yellow Pages, so narrow down the search here too. Type in "Software Yellow Pages." You'll narrow it down to 46.

On the same token, type in Directories and you'll pull up over 136,000 of them. Again, just narrow the search and target you product or service.

Use electronic publishing and conferences to spread the word.

You could do several things here, from publishing high-quality electronic content and newsletters from your site, and developing an email list, to going to electronic magazines to submit press releases with a viable angle about your business, product, or service. Submitting press releases to electronic trade publications is a great way to gain recognition for yourself and your business.

Look for chances to trade Web links with related sites, utilizing company mentions.

If you have an auto site, you should look internet wide at the types of sites that are related. Contact these people via email or phone to see if they'd like to trade links or be involved in a creative promotion you have designed.

All of these methods will provide the online visibility and repetition that will create a position for your company in the customer's mind on the internet.

Web sites on the internet continue to grow at amazing rates. People go "online" for many reasons; because everyone else is developing a web site, or because they've heard that they will make lots of money. These falsehoods will lead to the failures of many web sites, because the truth is that a great web site, and one that will be successful takes research and thought BEFORE it goes LIVE, and it takes lots of internet marketing, and traditional marketing efforts to make people aware of it. Building a web site is very similar to building a physical store, and no less thought should go into it.

Once your site is built, what are the basic internet marketing steps you should take?

The basics are:

• Search engines
• Directories
• What's new announcements
• Classifieds,
• Hot/Cool sites
• Newsgroups postings
• Reciprocal linking

These are the very basic steps, and whenever I speak about these things, inevitably I get the following questions:

Don't I just need to go into some search engines?

No, you need to put elbow grease into your site. You need to do consistent Internet Marketing on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. For example, if you were to start a new business in the real world, you would usually do the following promotional actions:

• Get free listings in the yellow pages
• Pass out flyers
• Network in your local community

Then, once you have made some sales you would put some money towards advertising, display ads, direct mail etc. You would continue to do these actions and watch your business expand.

When you go online with a website, it is highly similar to starting a new business (even if you have an existing business off-line) going into search engines/directories is similar to obtaining free listings in the yellow pages and newsgroup postings are similar to passing out flyers and reciprocal linking is similar to networking in your local community.

Then once you have made some sales, you would put some money towards advertising, banners ads, direct email etc. You would continue to do these actions and watch as your website expands.

So the typical thought that a search engine is the end all of your marketing efforts is desparately false....When you start a new business and you obtain a free listing in The Yellow Pages, do you solely rely on that advertising to bring you new prospects? If your answer is no, than why would you solely rely on the search engines to bring traffic to your site? It's the same thing. Search engines like yellow pages are where people go when they are sure what they are looking for, this is where they go when they are ready to buy, so in essence, you have to be there, it's necessary. At the same time, it is NOT where you will tell the world about your web site, and the products and/or services you have there, that will be where consistent Internet Marketing will come in handy.

You must tell people you exist through the basic methods of internet marketing, and traditional methods too. And you must do it consistently.

So to recap the basics are:

• Submissions to search engine/directories
• Classifieds
• What's new
• Hot/cool
• Site awards
• Newsgroups
• Reciprocal linking

Make the basics above into a checklist and review your website to see if these basics are implemented. If they are not in, go ahead and get them in. As you implement each of the basics, monitor your web statistics to see how much your web traffic has increased. Once your basics are in, you will notice your web traffic increase and then level off at the top, At that point you should start with banner advertising and direct emailing to continue to increase your traffic.

Internet Marketing of your site will glean consistent, interested visitors, and will not bring millions. If you put the work into your marketing efforts, and the building of your site, you will be rewarded.

Recommended Books:

 

©Copyright 1996-06, TWIN MONOLITH. All Rights reserved.