Online marketing has rapidly become an extremely competitive market with exceptional potential. Below are some valuable online marketing tips bound to bring out the very best in your company, services and products.
Online Marketing
What Is Online Marketing? (link to “what is internet marketing” article)
In a nutshell, online marketing refers to the marketing or advertising of products and or services over the internet. Online is an effective means of marketing and is the fastest growing media advertising medium in the world. Online marketing is also known as i-marketing, web marketing, internet marketing or eMarketing. Online marketing is interactive and offers the benefit of low distribution costs, making the receipt of information by a targeted global audience easily accessible. A primary reason why online marketing is so effective is because it joins together creative and technical factors of the internet, promoting design, development, advertising and sale elements all in one aesthetically appealing and information dense destination.
Questions To Ask Yourself
In order to develop a marketing strategy for your website, several questions beg to be asked. After all, a good strategy begins with comprehensive research. Questions to ask yourself include:
- Who is my target audience? – This will assist in producing a website that is appealing to the correct visitors (audience). Successful online marketing works hand in hand with having the correct market visiting the website and often.
- What are the objectives of my website?
- What can a visitor expect from my website? – Do you need to build a bond of trust with your audience? Are graphic details needed to be predominantly featured on the website? etc.
- What would I like the visitor of my website to leave with?
- What is so special about my website that visitors will feel compelled to return to it?
Top Tips For Effective Online Marketing
- Get To Know Your Market & Competitors
A good way to get to know your target market and their needs is to step inside their shoes, first and foremost. In order to develop an effective marketing strategy, questions are bound to be plentiful. They will be encountered, but through the process of overcoming obstacles, an effective and user friendly strategy can be built, piece by piece. Gradually a website layout will come together that is informative, helpful and easy on the eye. By determining who your market is, the design aesthetics (look and feel) will fall into place producing a pleasing result of your website.
Competitors are the reason why your website needs to be innovative and uniquely appealing. Competition is ever changing and so should you be. Get to know who you are competing with in the same market. Healthy competition will keep you on your toes and provide an effective means to grow and update your business. Organisation is vital and will serve as the glue that holds your strategy together. The latest buzz in your specific industry will also guide you with updating your website. A good thing to remember is that the quickest way to fail is to neglect sufficiently getting to know your market in order to develop a strong strategy that you can stick to.
- Choosing A Domain Name
It is imperative that the address of your website (domain name) strongly reflect the nature of your business. The domain name should be one that “sticks in the mind” and is easy to pronounce. The domain name simply has to appeal to the largest possible audience of your target market. This can be something of a challenge, but the opportunity for creativity is flexible, offering numerous possibilities whereby your business, products and services can truly shine and stand out. If a domain name is difficult to pronounce, the general public may assume that whatever it represents or stands for is too risky and will not venture onto your website.
- Search Engine Optimisation
Meta tags are a useful means of ensuring that search engines on the internet pick up on your website products and services. Text on your website should be well written and applicable (cutting out the “fluff” or information that is not commonly searched for) and enticing enough to draw a target onto the website. In short, meta tags are your “descriptions” and “keyword” tags. This is what is going to make an impression on an audience and thus needs to attract enough attention to invite people in. Essentially you are holding the door to your website wide open. The “greeting message” (meta tag) that you use must be appealing and inviting.
Search engine positioning determines where your website, products and services are listed when an audience conducts a “search”. It is therefore important that you use short (maximum of 50 characters) page titles that clearly inform and reflect the different pages on your website. Each page should have a title that offers efficient descriptions that place your website in one of the top search engine positioning spots. Online marketing is a competitive market. Your website is, in a sense, fighting it out with hundreds of others to come out on top and win over the “affections” of the market.
- Linking Programmes
Links offer your business an effective tool in not only marketing your services, but creating a lasting impression with your audience. An effective link programme encourages a healthy balance between traffic flow exiting your website and entering it through another site. The trick is to develop a link programme that doesn’t directly refer your audience to a competitor’s website, but retains the opportunity for your audience to browse the internet, gaining more useful information. The impression an audience will be left with will be a good one if your link programme is effective and will bring them back for more, more often.
- Banner Advertisements & Sponsorships
Determine your current marketing objectives and formulate a means of online advertising that best suits your needs and desires. For instance, if you desire to increase your company’s brand awareness, banner ad and sponsorship campaigns are an effective marketing tool. Banner advertisements offer you the opportunity to market yourself directly to your audience with the sole aim of increasing traffic flow to your website. Creativity will not only get you noticed, it will also leave a lasting impression that is almost certain to encourage visitors to your website.
In Conclusion
A key factor when marketing online is to remember that a website has no clear “definitive end”. In the ever changing world of online media and marketing, your website is your tool to enhance growth and optimum business potential. A website is not a static medium. It requires change, innovation and creative updates on a constant basis. Trends will change; market desires and needs will change too. The needs of your audience are somewhat fickle and change more often than you can count. It is thus imperative that you enlist the services of those in the know, with the expertise to develop, compile and implement effective online marketing strategies, such as Ataga (link to site), who will help you to bring out the very best of your products and services.