One of the biggest lessons I learned quickly is that if you don’t incorporate an online marketing plan for your business, YOU WON’T HAVE A BUSINESS!
Having an online marketing plan for your business will be vital to its success. You can have a beautiful, well organized site with amazing content, but if people can’t find you, all your hard work will be in vain.
As well, you can market the heck out of your site and have some success, but if you don’t continue to market on an ongoing basis, you will soon lose footing in your position (take my advice…been there).
So how do you market your website?
Glad you asked. It’s going to take a multitude of methods to get the word out about your website. The first steps of course will be to have a well organized, nice looking design, fully-loaded search engine optimized site. Once that’s done, then you can move on to marketing your website.
Here are 15 Online Marketing Strategies that you can start applying today:
- Commenting on other blogs
- Sharing information in forums
- Guest Blogging
- Utilizing Social Media sites to network
- Use XML feeds such as RSS and Atom
- Request editorials on other sites
- Create a free tool/plugin
- Send out a Press Release
- List your site in industry publications
- Ask for link exchanges with others compatible to your industry
- Utilize email and article marketing
- Submit your site to major directories such as dmoz.org
- Join a tribe of like minded entrepreneurs
- Look into advertising such as pay per click or buy text links
- Market locally in your town by giving out brochures and business cards
OK, the last one is not a direct online strategy, but a good one nevertheless.
So how often should you be marketing your business?
You are asking such great questions! AS MUCH AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE! Seriously, if you can do something to market your website every day, then do so; even if it’s one comment on another blog, or one post in a forum.
The more you put yourself out there and get in front of other people, the better the chances of online success. Attempt to keep it consistent as well. Writing one great comment on a blog and not marketing your site again for two weeks ain’t going to cut it…sorry to break the news.
It’s about, persistence, patience and consistency; what I like to call the NEW PPC. I know this stuff can be exhausting, I get it. But if you want the success your desire and DESERVE then you are going to have to put in the time.
Forget you are a online business owner for a moment and think of yourself as a marketer. Go ahead, say it out loud, “I AM A MARKETER!” Great! Now that we got that out of the way, get out there and do some marketing! And yes, not tomorrow, TODAY!
Here is an action for you to take right now:
Visit a blog that is related to your industry, read a post and make a comment. But not just a “great post” one-liner comment. Make it substantial and try giving something of value when doing so.
Good luck with your marketing and I would love to hear if you have any of your own methods. Also, if you feel others can get value from this list, please share it.