subject: Helpful Tips In Internet Marketing [print this page] It doesn't matter if your business is online or off, no matter what type of business you have you will need one thing to make it a success: customers. When talking about an online business those customers are your website visitors, or traffic. To get a steady stream of qualified traffic to your internet marketing site you'll want to use several different methods to get traffic, some of these methods are free to use and some will take time but the more weapons you have in your marketing arsenal, the more success you will have with your business.
Here is a short breakdown of some of the most common methods as well as the pros and cons of each kind:
1. Article Marketing. This is one of the best ways for someone to get started because it's totally free to do but it's very effective. With this method all you do is write an informative article centered around your product or service than submit that article to an article directory online. When writing your article you will use one keyword phrase (pick a phrase that gets at least 1,500 searches a month but that has less than 10,000 competitors) and use that phrase 3 - 5 times throughout the article. Your article should be between 250 - 500 words in length.
The one downside to this method is that it does take time and you will need a lot of articles. One or two won't do it, think more like 50 or more. You can always find someone else to write the articles for you if the idea of writing that many articles gives you hives.
2. Email marketing. To do this you will need to get an auto-responder. This is a service that will allow visitors to sign up to your newsletter list, they are giving you permission to email them so you aren't spamming them. You can send them helpful information over a period of time and build a relationship with them.
Then, on occasion, you can send them an email recommending that they buy a certain product or service (a product or service that you're an affiliate for so when they buy you will receive a commission). As long as most of the emails you send them actually provide them with some quality information and they aren't all sales pitches, this method works exceptionally well. The only downside is that it does take time to build a list and you already need a steady stream of traffic to your website, this method doesn't really build your traffic.
3. Search Engine Optimization. This is simply a way to add some keywords to certain areas of your website to make them more 'search engine friendly'. Again, it relies on you picking out the keywords that people will search for when looking for your product or service. Then you incorporate those keywords in certain parts of your website. It's not really that hard, but it is something you will need to learn how to do, or hire someone to do it for you. This method works great and it's free (unless you hire someone) but again, it does tend to take a little time to see the results.
For anyone who is just starting out I highly recommend you stay away from using paid methods such as Pay Per Click (PPC). PPC tends to have a very steep learning curve and you will have to pay as you learn which means a lot of money going out and very little, or none, coming back in. If you want to use PPC wait until the other methods are making money for you than reinvest some of those profits into a PPC campaign.
Getting traffic to your internet marketing site is job one for most internet business owners, use one or more of the tips I've given you and you can get a lot of great, quality traffic to your website for free which will really expand your profit margin!
