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A Beginner's Checklist to Promoting an
Online Business (Part 2)
© 2002
by Angela Wu
This week we continue with Part 2 of our 3-part series on
how to market your online business. Part 1 is available here. and
part 2 here.
As much as we all love free stuff, an Internet business
is still a business and you can reasonably expect to invest
in marketing. Fortunately, online marketing can be quite
affordable -- even to beginners on limited budgets.
Here's a quick list of some of the more popular paid methods
for small businesses.
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PART 2: Effective Fee-Based Online Marketing Methods
- Search engines. Web surfers typically use the
large search engines such as Google, MSN, and AOL to
find the information they want. If you can manage to get
a good ranking for some of your top key phrases, you can
get a steady stream of traffic. Expect to invest funds
for review/submissions, and possibly even for hiring an
optimization expert or for self-education. A great site
to learn about search engine optimization is Search
Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/.
- Major indexes. Yahoo [http://yahoo.com/]
and Open Directory [http://www.dmoz.org/]
are two of the best- known indexes. Both of them can
significantly increase your link popularity, and provide
you with additional traffic. At the time of writing,
Yahoo charges an annual review fee for commercial
websites. Submissions to Open Directory are currently
still free.
- Pay-per-click search engines. With these search
engines, you literally pay a certain amount of money for
every click they send your way. The more you bid, the
higher you'll rank for your search term and the more
visible your link will be. The largest and most popular
PPC SE is Overture, http://www.overture.com/.
A list of PPC SEs is available from http://payperclicksearchengines.com/.
- Ezine advertising. Although this takes a fair
bit of practice and experimentation, ezine advertising
is potentially one of the best and most profitable ways
to promote your business online. The editor has already
done the hard work of putting together a list of opt-in,
interested prospects; you just take advantage of it.
Search for complementary ezines at NetterWeb.com, http://www.netterweb.com/
or use the excellent Lifestyles Publishing Directory of
Ezines at http://buildyourhomebiz.com/directory.html.Direct
email campaign from a reputable list broker. There
are companies on the web that specialize in building
permission-based email lists, targeted to each
subscriber's area of interest. This is true 'opt-in',
unlike the endless stream of spam email that implores
you to purchase '30 million addresses for only $99!'
True opt-in lists are not cheap by any means, but they
have the potential to yield great results. Check out http://www.postmasterdirect.com/
as an example.
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- Press releases. Your newsworthy press release
could generate loads of free publicity for your
business. Invest some of your marketing funds in
educating yourself on how to generate publicity; an
excellent source of information is Paul Hartunian's
website at http://www.prprofits.com/.
- Advertise on a targeted website. Find
complementary but non-competing sites and check their
rates for advertising. Banner ads are the most common
type of advertising permitted; however, they're usually
not very effective. Text ads or endorsements typically
perform better.
- Mini-sites. These small sites (typically around
3 or 4 pages) are focused on selling one product.
There's usually no free content; just a sales letter,
perhaps a FAQ and some contact information. Mini-sites
are an excellent way to get your prospect to do just one
thing, whether that's order your product or sign up for
your newsletter. The costs to create a mini-site would
include domain name registration and hosting fees.
- Experiment with some of the promotional services
offered online. The only way to know for sure
whether or not they'll work for you is to try them (and
track the results). Use discretion -- be careful not to
associate your business with promotion services that are
nothing but 'disguised' ways to spam! Before you shell
out the cash for these types of services, ask around for
first-hand experiences.
- Hold a conference. A great credibility builder
is to offer a web or phone conference for your visitors.
Use it to offer helpful information -- for example, you
could open the conference to questions from the audience
-- and generate additional interest in your product or
service. Two sites that offer conference services are http://www.easyconference.com/
and http://www.bridgerentals.com/.
Don't be afraid to invest in marketing your online
business. Effective 'free' promotion is always wonderful,
but there are many equally effective paid methods that can
result in a great return on your investment. Be sure to
track the results for each method you use; that way you'll
be able to concentrate your efforts on those methods that
work best for your business.
Stay tuned next time for a checklist on promoting your
Internet business in the 'real world'!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online
Business Basics, a practical, down-to-earth guide to
building an Internet business on a beginner's budget. If you
enjoyed this article, you'll love the book! Visit http://www.onlinebusinessbasics.com
or request
a series of 10 free reports to get you started.
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