Internet Marketing in a Down Marketplace

By Kevin Dean – WSI Net Advantage

As we all know, there are tough economic times ahead, but it is also a time for opportunity. It is important to adopt online marketing strategies that give you a high return on investment, and bring customers and leads to your website.

Your website needs to work – for the search engines, for your customers, and for you.

A vital part of website marketing is ensuring your website can be found easily on the search engines. This is called 'search engine optimization' or SEO, and successful SEO means that, with inclusion of keywords and other elements in the right places, your website will rank higher on the search engines.

Imagine if your website could draw your target audience not just to your website, but straight to the right pages on your site? Using highly searched and relevant keywords, as well as creating landing pages that relate to certain products or services, we can get this going for you and bring in qualified visitors to your website.

One of the growing areas is local search, and there are several top directories and websites on which to list your website, which will also assist in helping your potential customers to find you easily amongst the competition.

Using established and ethical techniques, we can help you to achieve not only this first element of the online marketing mix, but we can also produce complete marketing plans tailored to meet you and your customers' needs.

For instance, by monitoring who visits your website, and measuring how many visitors convert to sales and enquiries, we can adapt the marketing methods you employ to ensure maximum bang for your buck.

It is important to keep an eye on where your visitors are coming from, which pages they are viewing, and importantly, which pages they are leaving from. Are your visitors leaving after looking at only one or two pages? A possible reason could be a problem with your website copy; it may need to be more compelling so a rewrite could be in order. Also, adding extra, unique content on your site can keep your visitors' attention and can bring traffic to your website for years to come, proving a great marketing investment.

Bidding for keywords can bring fast results with Pay per Click (PPC). Many companies have discovered that the benefits of PPC can be seen directly on the bottom line with increased site visitors, reduced customer acquisition costs, and higher sales.

By creating specific landing pages per product, and testing those pages regularly, it is much easier to ensure that your website visitors are directed to the information they seek, and are encouraged to complete measurable calls to action.

Another value for money method is to promote your website in comments on blogs and on forums. By avoiding the hard sell and being helpful will help to build your online reputation. A link to your website in your signature and profile can lead interested parties to your website.

There are many social media and networking tools available which are also excellent value for money, if used wisely. These can bring in great results for businesses in 2009 and 2010, without taking a lot out of shrinking marketing budgets.

Start slowly, but keep up the pace in your marketing and 2009 into 2010 could bring fantastic results for those who are diligent about adopting new practices and strengthening previous strategies with expert help. Call Kevin at WSI Net Advantage - (510) 687-9737.