A basic website is not enough. You wouldn’t pay hundred of dollars for a well designed promotional mail-out and then not pay for the postage required to actually mail it out, would you? That is essentially what you are doing if you get a website but do not market it. A site that is not well marketed will not be found and, therefore, will not bring you any more customers. A well marketed website for a common service can bring you hundreds of leads every month. Depending on your customer value and how well you can turn leads into customers, this could add a significant amount to your bottom line.

If you have a business and you don’t have a website, it is essential that you make the investment towards a well designed and well marketed site if you want to compete in today’s market. Since many business owners don’t have the skill or will put in the effort to learn to do it themselves, it is best to hire a professional to do this just like you wouldn’t try to do your business taxes if you were not an accountant or fix the wiring if you were not an electrician.

And while Ezine Articles as a whole may have been hit somewhat, Ezine Articles is still an effective way to do article marketing. That is, on one condition. If your articles contain unique content (spun article don’t count as unique), then your content will still rank well even if it is on Ezine Articles. The main reason that Ezine Articles was hit so hard is because a large portion of the content on that site had been spun from other sources.

So from this point on, if you are doing article marketing, be sure that all of your articles are genuine and unique. If you do use a spinner, go back and change some of the structure of the article as well so that it really is a unique article.

The change in Google is actually a good thing for the people who were following the rules and producing unique content.

The idea behind email marketing is that you offer a free report or guide on your website in exchange for a lead’s name and email address. Then you can send this person information that might be helpful as well as incentives to return and become a customer. Here are some ideas on what you can send to your customers:

- A guide to doing a regular maintenance task related to your business. For example, a dentist might send info on how to brush properly. An HVAC company might send a report on how to change a AC filter.

- What to look for in a company in your market. Be sure that you can claim that you fit all of those points. Make sure that you are not pitching yourself. Instead make it seem like you are writing from a third party’s point of view.

- An invitation to an open house that you are holding. This can be a good way to get a lead to your company so that you can sell them in person.

- A discount for their first purchase. Offering a nice rate on their first purchase is a way to convert a customer that may still be on the fence. Then once they are a satisfied customer, they will be more willing to come back to you at your regular price.

- Anything else that would help them make a purchasing decision. If you can think of some information that would be useful to people trying to choose a company in your market, sending this out can make you seem like an authority in your market.

Easy to use

WordPress can be running in a matter of minutes. It makes website creation as easy as entering your name and the title you want to use.

Many themes

Themes make your website look the way you want it to. There are many free themes or you may purchase them from another website.

Plugins

WordPress has many plugins that can make your website do something it doesn’t already do. If there’s not an already existing plugin that does what you need, its very easy to hire someone to make it for you. Plugins help you set up your email, SEO, run google analytics, and much more.

Wide support

WordPress has a huge community. If you have problems, just post your question. There is sure to be someone there who can help you with your website.

SEO Friendly

WordPress has become a marketing standard, and with using a plugin like SEOUltimate, it gives you really good SEO. This leaves you to focus on the offsite SEO, which is more important.

WordPress is a great tool for website creation. Its a marketing standard that is free and easy to use.

Does SEO matter in an intranet? Yes! There’s less competition and its easier to rank. However, its possible that, for instance, a news article could outrank the department. If someone is looking for the department, they might have to sift through news articles! SEO does matter in an intranet, so make sure your intranet site is optimized.

Does an intranet site need to compete with Google? In some cases, no. In others, intranet sites may be geared to the outside world. They might have ads that try to attract people to their department site. These kind of sites need to compete in the internet search engines. Those with intranet sites may sometimes forget that SEO does matter.

If you do have a site like this, think about your audience. Is your audience solely people in your community or do you want outside visitors? If you want outside visitors, its important you do SEO so you are ranked outside of your intranet.

Why are your visitors at your site?

First ask yourself what your visitors are looking for. When you are doing landing page creation, adapt the landing page to that answer. For instance, if the people in your niche are looking for a particular topic, highlight this information on your landing page above the fold so they don’t have to scroll down. If people are coming to purchase something, make it easy to do. Give them enough content so they can make an informed decision. In landing page creation, you want your site to be easy to use and communicate information clearly to your visitors. If your page is easy to use, they will stay their longer. If they cant find what they’re looking for, they will go to a different site, perhaps those of your competitors. This is why its important to have adequate landing page creation.

Tracking Visitors

The important thing is that you track your visitors. You can use google analytics, which you will install at the bottom of your site. If you use wordpress, there is a plugin you can use. These allow you to see how visitors get to your site, how long they’ve been on your site, and when they’ve found what they need. You can see how many people leave your site when they don’t find what they need. Good landing page creation can keep people on your site. A site that is badly set up is a site that has a high rate of people showing up and leaving. Good landing page creation can improve your chances of people staying on your site.

What is the goal of internet marketing?

The goal of internet marketing is to make money, and you make money by making sales. In order to be considered a “business”, you must be making money. A blog that doesn’t make money is a hobby. If you’re not focused on sales, you’re off course.

Getting Off Course

Getting off course is easy: you might be lost in the social media world, or you might be caught up in giveaways. You may find yourself working more on creating an interesting blog than creating sales. These activities might be fun to do, but they don’t help you make sales. How do you stay on course in your internet marketing?

Staying On Course

You need to keep track of what you are doing and how many sales you make. Keep track daily, weekly, and monthly so you can see trends. What are you doing to make an increase? Are your sales increasing? Or are your sales staying the same? What can you do to improve sales? If your sales are decreasing, what is causing this decrease? What are you doing differently? Tracking sales and making goals are the best ways to keep on track and succeed in internet marketing.

What is an email list?

Members of an email list may be gathered by offering a small give-away in exchange for people’s emails. Once you have their email and their permission to use it, you can send them ads, marketing, or anything that can build rapport. Its good to keep in touch with current customers through an email list as well.

What is a lead list?

A lead list is for those who request quotes or more information from you. They give you their information and these contacts go into a lead manager. You take the lead through an outlined step-by-step process to convert them from a lead to a sale.

Which to use?

It depends on your business and the methods you use, but both are valuable for email marketing. If you have a step-by-step process for creating customers, a lead list may be best for you. If you’re more interested in building rapport and trust, an email list is a great way to go. An email list is also a great way to bring customers back. An email list is useful for building rapport and notifying people of sales or special events. The lead list is for active conversion. The benefit of a lead list is that you don’t have to send a verification email as opposed to an email list where you need permission to send the emails when you are creating your email marketing campaign.

How do you set them up?

Find whatever software you want to use for your email marketing. The software will generate an html form to put on your website that will sign people up for the email list or lead list. For lead lists, check out CRM Sugar. Its free and easy to use. Fusionsoft is expensive, but also very good. Aweber and Constant Contact are good for email lists and email marketing.

Why outline?

I outline all my articles at one time. I then go back later and turn those outlines into articles. I can even turn them into videos! Outlines are good because they give structure. Its better to have a very structured step by step article than a long, rambling article that goes no where.

How do you outline?

Think about your topic. Think about your keyword. From there, generate a title. Then make a list of the general points you need to explain the topic. This is a basic outline. After you have the basic outline, you can edit it and rearrange it to suit your needs.

What are outlines good for?

Outlines are good for more than one type of content. An outline that you created specifically for an article can be tweaked to be an outline for a video. Or, you can make an outline for a video and turn that video into an outline. Outlines help with multiple types of content.

How can you tell if you are in a bad neighborhood? Look at the content! If the content looks stuffed with keywords or auto-generated, you might be in a bad neighborhood! The content was written for Google, not for people. There will be many links to things not related to site. The site just “feels bad”. The content can be illegal or adult oriented. Bad backlinks can actually hurt you. You have to be careful if you are buying backlinks because you may be getting backlinks from bad neighborhoods, which will actually hurt you, especially when you are doing directory submissions. Get backlinks from good neighborhoods so you will have more success in directory submissions.

Be careful not to link to a bad neighborhood! Once you link there, you are associated with a bad neighborhood and you may become a part of it.