As you should no by now, internet marketing plays an important role in the success of just about every business. Creating and sustaining a successful online business presence can be easier said than done.

Online users have more control than ever over what and when they want to view. This can make it more challenging to get your product or service in front of the right people, especially when you are on a tight budget.

Here are a few internet marketing tips

Set goals, then reset

What exactly are you looking to gain from your internet marketing efforts, awareness, web traffic, phone calls. Be realistic, and it’s ok to have more than one. Adjust the goals when you reach them so that you are always improving.

Set a budget

Once you have a specific goal, now you need to set your budget. You don’t have to break the bank to have success with internet marketing. Pay-per-click and banner ads are very efficient. Social media is free for the most part. Pick two or three forms of adverting. Start slow and ramp up.

Know your market

You need to know who your potential audience is. You need to know where they frequent online. Without these answers, your internet marketing efforts could be wasted. There is no need to hire an advertising agency unless you can answer these questions. 99% of the times business owners know their products or services. With that said, it’s not too difficult to figure out who the target audience is.

Brand yourself

What makes a good ad is the strong promotion of what makes you different or better. This is the bread and butter of every ad agency and internet marketing campaign. There are thousands of companies trying to sell products on the Internet. You really need to make you brand unique. From your logo, to your website, to your collateral, strive to create a unique brand that makes you stand out. There are branding companies that can help with these services without costing you a fortune.

SEO (search engine optimization)

People use search engines like Google and Bing to find the products and services they need. That’s the most important time to show up in a search result, when someone looking for your type of company.  How do you make that happen? You need to make sure your website is set up (or optimized) so that the search engines can easily find you.

SEO is not rocket science but can be difficult if you are not web savvy. It’s about using the right key words for your business and setting up the pages with these words in the right places. You also need to submit the website to the search engines. Here is a good article on the basics. This would be a good place to start. Working with an affordable website design company is defiantly money well spent if you don’t have the time or skills.

The importance of blogging

In order to rank high for you keywords or phrase, you need to have a lot of content on your website using those keywords or phrase. Just about every successful internet marketing plan involves blogging. Blogs are just articles that you can write yourself about your industry, products and services. These blog posts do two things. First, it shows your potential audience that you are and expert in your biz, which builds trust and sales. It also shows search engines that you are an expert. This will improve your search engine ranking.

So go forth and good luck in your internet marketing efforts. Give Springboard a call if your have any questions.