Internet Marketing - Some Do's and Don'ts
by: Murray Williams
If you're new to internet marketing, it can be quite confusing and overwhelming. You've decided on an idea, done your research and determined that there is a market for your idea, developed a web site and now you're ready to take the plunge into the world of internet marketing.
Internet marketing isn't as complicated as it might seem -- there's no particular mystery to it. You just have to know where to start and what proper steps to take to help get your site seen on the web and ranked by the search engines. The first step in your internet marketing plan is to write a press release announcing your new site and pointing out the benefits and features of it that makes it useful to the public. It doesn't have to be long -- about 300 words or so -- but it does have to sound newsworthy. One thing you should keep in mind is to be sure you have your relevant keywords in the title, subtitle and liberally sprinkled throughout the text. Also, you'll want to write it from a third person point of view and make sure it doesn't sound like an advertisement. Also, keep it “mundane”, i.e., something suitable for a general audience.
The next step in advancing your internet marketing goals should be to write an article and submit it for online publishing. Again, it doesn't have to be long (about 500 to 800 words). Again, you'll want to have the right keywords in the title and spread throughout the text. For example, this piece has the term “internet marketing” in the title and interspersed in the body of the text as this is what it is being optimized for. A good place to submit your articles is SubmitYOURArticle.com. For a monthly subscription, they'll submit your editorials for you to top sites, thereby giving you great exposure. We've used their services ourselves and found it to be superb. Both the press release and writing articles are two important steps on the road to internet marketing success.
The next stop on the internet marketing highway is to generate some free traffic to your site. Two ways to accomplish this are to post on forums that are relevant to your subject matter (with your URL in your signature line) and getting listed in directories in the appropriate categories. The press release and the article(s) should help to generate a lot of free traffic via the backlinks pointing to your site as they are published and distributed, but hey, the more traffic, the better! Beware of internet marketing services claiming to list your site in a ton of directories -- most aren't worth the money. Also beware of internet marketing companies claiming they can get you high placement on the search engines. We tried this and it didn't work. You may come across yet other internet marketing companies saying they can send targeted traffic to your site for a fee, of course. We tried this, too, and it didn't work either! We have yet to come across any internet marketing company promising this or that who can actually deliver what they say they can by way of placement or traffic.
Basically, what it boils down to is that your internet marketing success is mostly dependent on your own efforts and wisely choosing services and software that will genuinely help you achieve your internet marketing goals.
About The Author
Murray Williams is one of the owners of HelpfulInternetmarketing, a site that is designed to help the new entrepreneur just starting out. After having met many dead ends in his own internet marketing journeys, he decided to develop this site and assist others by offering quality articles and software that have been screened for their usefulness. To view the site and the articles and software, please visit HelpfulInternetMarketing at:
http://www.helpfulinternetmarketing.com.
