Top Marketing Strategies for the Small Online Business Owner

[JoelMartin]

Having a successful online business means having a good marketing plan. And Internet entrepreneurs who have found success develop top marketing strategies that work to pull in business to their website.

Most ordinary people who start an online business, start slowly and can’t afford to hire a marketing firm to help them. But you can still have a good marketing plan without mortgaging your house or eating canned soup for the rest of your life. Good marketing is easier than you might think, but it is also something you cannot skimp on if you want to make money online.

Why? Because the Internet has thousands upon thousands of websites all competing for the same eyes. To make your website stand out and to get those vital visits, you must do some basic marketing to drive traffic to your site.

Here are some top marketing strategies that everyone with an online business should use to amp up their traffic—most of which cost very little or nothing to accomplish.

•Develop an e-mail mailing list. This can take time, but it’s vital if you want to increase business, keep your customers or increase your recruitment in the case of network marketing businesses. You can buy mailing lists, but people who do report widely varying results. The best bet is to slowly build your list, email people information that is useful, and be diligent about keeping it up to date. One way to build an e-mail list is to offer something for free on your site, be it a free e-book or a free newsletter. E-mail marketing is still considered one of the best ways to reach customers.

•Issue press releases announcing news events about your business. Search engines consider press releases “quality” content, and this will help boost your website’s page placement. Ideally, you want to have your website pop up on the first page or two of a keyword search. This is one area where it’s worth it to have a professional write and issue your press release.

•Article marketing. Writing an article about some aspect of your business can be one of the best ways to market your site. No matter how small your business is , if you write an article with a pertinent keyword and submit it to an online article directory, you will increase your website’s SEO (search engine optimization). The key here is to write an article that people will actually want to read. You put your website address at the bottom of the article and hopefully get the clicks you need to grow your business.

•Blogging. Start a blog about some aspect of your business. For example, if you sell jewelry supplies, you could blog about ways and methods of creating jewelry. People will go to your blog for information, and then click on a link to your site to buy jewelry-making supplies.

•Social networking. If you have a business, you should be on any social networking site that exists and visit often. Talk about something that might actually interest your potential customers; don’t just tell them to visit your site. For example, you could provide a link to an article you’ve written.

Marketing isn’t brain surgery, but is something you absolutely must engage is if you want to grow your Internet-based business.