Business Marketing and Technology

Given the state of the online market in the current recession, wasting money on website marketing might not seem like a very bright idea. In fact it might seem foolish to spend money when you have little hope of recovering it. Yet even now there is enough money in the market to make a decent living. I am not kidding when I say this.

* Get A Plan

All you need to know is the way to go about making money. Website marketing is very important to this plan. If your website is invisible you are not going to make any money. So you need to spend money to make money. You might now say that you have no money. You don’t need to spend millions, just a few dollars in the right places can work wonders.

People don’t stop buying things in a recession. They reduce buying the number of things they would buy. So website marketing is important to make them think of your site when they do decide to buy something online. That’s when you will be able to make money, while your competitors don’t. That’s got to be a good pay off on a small investment.

* Make Money From Different Sources

Making money does not have to be restricted to selling products from your website. True website marketing geniuses will make money from schemes such as PPC or pay per click as well. Are your familiar with the concept of piggy backing a ride with someone going your way? That is what PPC is all about.

Pay per click helps you to add to the passive income that you generate from your website. If your website marketing helps you get a good page rank, you will have increased traffic to the site. Now use this traffic for generating passive PPC income by placing other people’s ads on your site.

Another tool that can be used for website marketing is SEO. Professional search engineoptimization can cost quite a packet. There are cheaper and easier ways to get SEO done.Shop around for options that suit your pocket. If you make use of it well it is bound to help boost your ranking and subsequently your sales.

Having a blog on your website is crucial to boost SEO. It is one of the cheapest options available in the market today. Website marketing also becomes easier if you can communicate with your prospective clients via your blog. Make sure to have regular updates on the blog, or no one will visit it.

* Advertise To Sell

Some people feel that it is a waste of money spending on online classifieds as a tool for website marketing. I disagree. A few well placed classifieds can give you enough business to recover the cost and make some money. This is using pay per click reversed.

You place ads on a well ranking website with loads of traffic to enhance your website marketing. The traffic that gets generated will help boost your income. Maybe through direct sales or via PPC.

Making money is possible when you know where to make it.

Guerrilla Marketing, Web Marketing E-Commerce, Guerrilla Marketing, internet marketing, investing, recession, tough times, website

Life is coming at us much faster than 10 years ago, and the average individual is getting very good at tuning out traditional advertising methods.  They’ve got Tivo for TV commercials, Spam filters for unsolicited e-mail, and an RSS news feed instead of a newspaper.  These traditional ‘outbound’ marketing mediums are broadcasting a message that is getting filtered before it reaches your target.

A new wave of marketing, called ‘inbound marketing,’ is taking a different approach.  Instead of barraging the target with interruptions, inbound campaigns seek to position the company in front of the target when they’re looking for their services.  For example, an inbound campaign would focus around coming up at the top of search engine results for their keywords, social networking, and building authority and being a resource in their field.  In this way, when a target begins their search for the type of services the company provides, the company appears among the top in their industry. Read more…

Search Engine Optimization craigslist, internet marketing, seo, social networking, web design

As a relatively new blog, I’m always looking for ways to bring in legitimate traffic and reward contributors for thought-out comments. Now, the opportunity is built in to this blog. I’ll describe how the nofollow process works in my next post…

I had been tossing around the idea for a while, considering the downside of losing my stellar pagerank - this blog is currently not ranked :). I read up on the topic and decided to join the growing community of ‘dofollowers.’ There are quite a few reasons, many of which are Read more…

Guerrilla Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Marketing blog, comments, dofollow, internet marketing, link building, seo, website

There’s just so much good stuff in this book, I might have to turn this into a multi-part series. Chapter 4, “Direct Response Marketing” (from Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet by Jay Conrad Levinson) really got me thinking about how many sites I’ve come across that don’t do anything for the business. In very few cases, having the simplest of ‘brochure websites’ (strictly informational and usually for credibility purposes) may be appropriate, but there are so many opportunities to get your web site to do more for your business.

The easiest thing any website can do is collect your visitor’s contact information. This can be used as a targeted list for your marketing offers (as long as you have their permission of course). There are many things you can offer your visitors in exchange for their contact info (specifically, e-mail address):

• Free “White-Paper,” E-Book, or How-to-Article (ex: see our web design landing page offer - 9 Tips for Better Web Marketing)

Read more…

E-Commerce, Guerrilla Marketing, Web Marketing call to action, customers, E-Commerce, Guerrilla Marketing, internet marketing, sales, web design, website

Competitor analysis is vital for every business.  Who could compete with you for your customer base? It’s an excellent idea to do a thorough analysis of possible competitors before you go further in your venture. Search the web, online forums, phone books, your chamber of commerce, and ask everyone you know (and some you don’t). Find out who’s out there, what their strategy is, and why your business will succeed alongside your competition (or put them out of business). Remember that for some types of businesses, competitors don’t have to be located in the same city, state, or even country to take customers away from you.

I like to break down competitors into 3 different categories:

Level 1 Competitors - These are people doing almost exactly the same thing you’re doing.  If you’re running a flower shop on Oak Street, these are the guys 15 blocks down on Maple.  You both might have your own specialty arrangements or selection, but if you’re both ‘flower shops’ they are considered Read more…

General Marketing business plan, competitors, internet marketing, startup