Website Marketing Made Simple
Keywords: website marketing, internet marketing
Internet marketing can be arduous. Small business sites do not have the capital necessary to partake in mainstream advertising. However, there are ways to effectively launch a new site without spending millions of dollars. We will review each of the marketing options available to you so that you can create a simple, inexpensive plan that works for you.
Commercials and print advertising are expensive. This is undoubtedly the best way to market your online business, but the costs are prohibitive. A full page ad in a prominent magazine or other publication can run as high as $50,000 per ad. TV commercials can run just as high; if the commercial runs during a popular television show or sporting event, the amount you will have to pay can well exceed the costs of print advertising.
So, if you do not have enough money in the coffers for traditional advertising, you need to resort to online marketing. This is not a bad thing. Offline advertising (i.e. radio, TV, print ads) is sometimes not effective. Marketing on the internet is cheaper, and if done correctly, can give you much more bang for your buck.
The first thing you need to understand is that your search engine ranking will not improve overnight. Be wary of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultants. They will charge you an arm and a leg for their services, sometimes as much as $2,000 per month or more. They often make dubious claims that they can get you ranked on the first page of the search engines within a few months, and if not, they will kindly refund your money.
However, there is a catch. Once you pay the initial deposit and the SEO company begins working on your website, they will often optimize your website in such a manner so that you will be able to quickly rise to the top of the rankings for a keyword that is either not significant or will not attract any real traffic to your website.
For example, if your website provides auto insurance quotes, any SEO consultant knows that it will be impossible to expediently get your website ranked on the first page of Google for a highly competitive phrase such as AUTO INSURANCE QUOTES. So, instead, they will pick a variation of that phrase, such as AUTO INSURANCE QUOTES FAST, for which there is no competition, and you will quickly rise to the top. The only problem is no one will ever actually use that precise phrase when searching for auto insurance quotes, so even though the SEO company delivered on its promise to improve your ranking, you will still not get any visitors to your website because you will be ranked high for a keyword that no one will ever use when searching for auto insurance quotes.
More important than SEO is link popularity. Simply put, the link popularity for a given website is defined as the number of websites that currently link to that site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only 100 or less. The search engines use this as the most important criteria in their search algorithms for determining where a site should be ranked. The more high quality inbound links a site has, the higher its ranking.
The sheer number of links to a site is not the only factor used to determine link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance and significance of the links. For example, if a website that sells wheelchairs has 2,000 inbound links, but most of the links are coming from insignificant sites that have nothing to do with wheelchairs, then the search engines might assess a low score for the link popularity of that particular site.
It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality, relevant links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of nonsensical links. If I have a website that provides mortgage quotes, and I have 800 inbound links, and most of the sites linking to me are quality websites that are related to mortgages or personal finance, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that are mostly from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.
If you try to acquire inbound links to your website by submitting your site to link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get banned from the search listings altogether. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links to your site originating from these FFA pages or link farms.
The way to improve your link popularity is simply by advertising your website. If your site provides a meaningful service or sells popular products, people will link to you after you start advertising and your site becomes more popular. You should also submit articles or press releases to article submission directories. You are allowed to include a link to your website at the bottom of the article. So, as your articles are put into circulation, you will receive a lot of links.
You might want to join a link exchange so that you can trade links with other sites, but the links you will receive are usually worthless. Instead, you should focus on advertising and submitting articles to get your site known so that you can get those high quality links you need to climb to the top of the search engines.
If you are not patient enough to wait for your search engine ranking to improve, you can attract visitors to your web site instantly by using pay-per-click advertising (PPC). With PPC, you pay a certain cost per click to have an ad for your web page run at or near the top of the search engine listings for certain keywords. This can be extremely costly and ineffective. It is not uncommon for webmasters to blow thousands of dollars on PPC advertising and make only a few sales.
The best way to promote your site, if you are actually selling something, is through an affiliate program. You need to provide an affiliate code to other online merchants so that they will place your banner on their site; every time you make a sale that resulted from an affiliate referral, the affiliate gets a commission. Some internet companies have thousands of affiliates, and get all the business they would ever need or want this way; and it costs you nothing. To recruit affiliates, you should submit your affiliate program to as many directories as possible (there are directories where you can list your affiliate program for free). The best way to find affiliates is by listing your program on forums or message boards visited by webmasters who are looking to generate additional revenue for their online business. You will have to consult with an experienced programmer who can set up the program so that the affiliate codes can be tracked properly.
If you are persistent and use all of these methods, you are likely to succeed with internet marketing. You will have to perform each of the tasks outlined in this article on a daily basis for several years to get where you want to be. Just stick with it and your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.
Jim Pretin is the owner of www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make free HTML forms.
Previous Articles Highlighter:
Internet Marketing Made Simple (1)
Indeed, internet marketing is a challenge, and it takes years of persistence. There are many affordable ways to get traffic to your site. For now, we will outline the most practical ways for you to market your online business without having to spend a great deal of money.
A Guide To Internet Marketing (2)
You should only do business with submission services that submit to the major engines and directories. Now that we have covered submission, we need to talk about search engine optimization (SEO), which is even more important.
Can Anyone Really Make Money Online? (3)
We will begin our discussion with my personal favorite; sites that claim to have work-from-home or telecommuting jobs being offered by fortune 500 companies, and you can submit your resume if you pay a membership fee to join the website so you can gain access to their job postings.
The Importance Of Link Popularity (4)
The way to improve your link popularity is simply by advertising your website. If your site provides a meaningful service or sells popular products, people will link to you after you start advertising and your site becomes more popular.
Issues With Formmail (5)
If you do not this, people will be able to send spam right through your form, which brings us to another important point. Because it is possible to send spam through a form if the Formmail file is not created properly and does not authorize only one email address as the recipient, several web hosting companies do not allow their customers to run forms on their sites.
Choosing A Web Designer (6)
Always work with a professional if your project requires a certain level of expertise and skill, and make sure they show you some samples of work they have produced in the past.
What Is DHTML? (7)
This model is now compatible with most web browsers. It provides a standard set of objects that can be used in web programming, making it easier to access and change web documents.
A Brief Introduction To E4X (8)
Cell phones, palm tops, laptops, even computer screens in automobiles have web browsers. These gadgets have platforms and web browsers that are very different from what is installed on an ordinary desktop PC.
What Is DTD? (9)
The web browsers and operating systems installed on these wireless devices are often very different from what is installed on an ordinary desktop PC. Many elements of the HTML programming language are not compatible with some of these wireless platforms.
What Is RSS? (10)
RDF Site Summary was the first version of RSS. It was created by Dan Libby of Netscape in 1999. This version was known as 0.9. Later that same year, Libby combined 0.9 with an XML syndication format created by Dave Winer to create 0.91, which gave birth to the other versions that would follow it, such as 1.0 and 2.0.
How To Hire The Right Web Designer (11)
Should you hire someone who works for a company that employs many different web designers under a single umbrella, or should you hire a sole proprietor? Or, should you hire a freelancer who does web design part time?
What Is AJAX Programming? (12)
Back in 1996, a website could be created in a few minutes by inserting the content into a basic HTML template, and adding some graphics for style. Now, the internet is populated with web sites that are more complex.
What Is XML Schema? (13)
Web browsers and email client software were installed on laptops, palm tops, cell phones, and computer screens in automobiles, to name a few. The platforms and web browsers being used on wireless products are different from an ordinary desktop PC.
Introduction To HTML DOM (14)
With so many different web browsers and platforms on the market, some of which are incompatible with HTML, not using DOM could mean that the web sites you create will appear scrambled or might even be invisible to the user.
An Introduction To VBScript (15)
An array would be a variable that has more than one value. When defining each value of a single variable with an array, the name of the variable stays the same, but each value is defined with an index number that is placed in parentheses.
Introduction To SQL (16)
Databases generally consist of tables. Tables consist of records. Each record in a table contains certain information, separated by columns. For example, a dating website where people can post their profiles would probably consist of a table holding a record of each person who has a membership.
What Is XML DOM? (17)
As a result, websites created purely with HTML are often invisible or inaccessible to the wireless internet user. New languages and specifications such as XHTML, XSL, and XML were created to conform to these new web browsers.
What Is WSDL? (18)
A simple example of a situation in which WSDL might be used would be for a web site that provides real-time stock quotes. When the user inputs the ticker symbol for the stock for which they want the current market price, the web service that supplies the current price would be called to action by a WSDL file that would initiate a solicit-response operation so that the web service will return a response to the message.
What Are XForms? (19)
Keywords: XForms, XForm, HTML Form, email form HTML forms, such as email forms and order forms, are perhaps the most important components of a website. Without forms, webmasters would not be able to collect information from their site visitors, and they would not be able to accept online credit card orders from their customers, which is the heart and soul of ecommerce.
What Is XSL? (20)
You have probably heard of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is a style sheet language that evolved to make it easier for web designers to create a style for an HTML web page.
Newer Articles Highlighter:
An Introduction To Internet Marketing (1)
It is not uncommon for webmasters to blow thousands of dollars on PPC advertising and make only a few sales. You can also pay for advertising space in ezines, which are basically magazines in cyberspace that are sent via email to thousands of subscribers.
Introduction To Pay Per Click Marketing (2)
Google is not the only search engine that has a PPC service available. Overture also has a service, as does Miva, and several others. Each service is tied to different search engines.
Do You Need An HTML Form? (3)
There are also third-party HTML form services that will help you create the form and process it for you on their own servers. I hope this information will help you decide how you want to get an HTML form up and running on your website.
Improve Your Search Engine Ranking (4)
The more websites that are linking to your site, the higher your ranking will be. To increase your link popularity, you will need to submit your website to link exchange directories so that you can swap links with other websites (they will link to you if you agree to link to them).
My Internet Marketing Secrets Revealed (5)
This is fairly easy to do. Simply sign up for a monthly submission plan with a credible search engine submission service. There are literally hundreds of these submission services on the internet; you can find them by performing a search on Google.
Getting Ranked Higher On Search Engines (6)
There are hundreds or even thousands of legitimate search engines and directories in cyberspace, and you should submit to all them. I recommend that you look for search engine submission companies on Google and pick one that charges a small monthly fee to submit your site to the search engines once every month.
Creating Your First HTML Form (7)
Formmail is written in a programming language called PHP, which is more advanced than HTML. There are many websites where you can download the Formmail file for free. Formmail has been used to process and email the results of web forms since 1997.
HTML Might Become Obsolete (8)
As a result, someone using a cell phone to access a certain web site may not be able to view it properly because the browser running on that cell phone might not be able to display the HTML.
Finding A Good Web Designer (9)
Follow all of these recommendations and be careful when hiring a web designer. Always work with a professional if your project requires a certain level of expertise and skill, and make sure you request a portfolio containing samples of their work so you can see what they have already done.
Your First Online Form (10)
If you just posted a new website, but you do not have a web form uploaded and you need to quickly provide a way for your visitors to contact you, then you should simply post your email address on your Contact page.
Learn How To Use Formmail (11)
After you download it, you will need to modify the code in order to adapt it to the form you have created. The first challenge you will face is changing the code, if need be, so that it automatically checks to make sure that all required fields from your form have been completed.
How To Make Your Traffic Explode (12)
Their goal is to bleed you dry before you figure out that they really can not help you get to the top of the rankings. Stick to providers who will optimize your site for a one-time fee.
Your First HTML Email Form (13)
If you just posted a new website, but you do not have a HTML email form uploaded and you need to quickly provide a way for your visitors to contact you, then you should simply post your email address on your Contact page.
Learn To Create An Online Form (14)
These third-party form creators usually do not provide you with the PHP code you need to process the form. Instead, they process it for you on their own servers.
How Traffic To My Site Skyrocketed (15)
This is undoubtedly the best way to launch a business, but the costs are prohibitive. A full page ad in a prominent magazine or other publication can run as high as $50,000 per ad.
Your First Web Form (16)
Instead, they process it for you on their own servers. If you are comfortable with programming, you might want to try to create your web form yourself with the help of some online tutorials.
Internet Marketing For Beginners (17)
The most important task is search engine submission and optimization. There are many different search engines and directories on the internet where you can submit your web site. You need to sign up for a monthly submission plan with a credible search engine submission service.
How My Website Became Popular (18)
If you do not know how to optimize your web site, you should search for an optimization professional on Google. Steer clear of SEO experts who want to charge $1,000 per month or more.
How To Make Your First Web Form (19)
This can be a huge problem. If you do not have the patience to create your form yourself, there are more than a few form creation services on the internet that provide a simple way for you to create a form without doing any programming.
How To Start A Digital Information Business On The Internet (20)
In fact selling digital information products is one of the easiest businesses you will ever set up. Here's why. Do you have a product of your own to sell.