When it comes to Internet marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) there are two things you need to know: your target audience and your existing and potential market. Starting with this and with some relevant content you can start building your very own Internet marketing campaign.
When working on your online advertising campaign it’s important to remember that you don’t just need to draw visitors to your website. You need to attract targeted traffic. The following basic Internet marketing tools will help you take your Internet marketing and advertising campaign to the next level:
1. Domain Name
Your domain name is your first Internet marketing tool. The right domain name can be the most effective marketing tool for your business.
For example, if a customer’s official business name is Jim Jones’ Fine Automobiles Inc. he would have a few different options when looking for a domain. Most customers choose the most obvious one: their full business name becomes their domain name. However, in most cases such a domain would mean very little to most consumers. In the above example it’s highly unlikely that anyone would use the term “fine automobiles” to search for a vehicle. Moreover, Mr. Jones’ operation may be very small and not widely known in his area so the name “Jim Jones’ Fine Automobiles” may not mean anything to most consumers in that specific area and will definitely not mean anything to consumers anywhere else in the world.
In this case a good practice is to pick a short memorable keyword-related domain name. For example, www.edmontoncars.com, it’s obviously easy to remember/spell and it tells you exactly what the site is about. Picking a domain directly related to the keyword or keywords of your site will help greatly in obtaining a high ranking for your site with the search engines. Not to mention, it will be a great marketing and promotional tool, telling your potential customers exactly what your site is promoting and displaying. In Mr. Jones’ case he could pick www.finecarsedmonton.com or www.exoticvehiclesedmonton.com or www.importvehiclesedmonton.com or even better he should reserve all 3 domains (if available).
Some marketers also suggest going for a short “jazzy” name that can be easily remembered by your visitors. Most obvious examples are giants like EBay, Google, Yahoo, Twitter etc.
Regardless of which way you’ll go with your domain, make sure you examine all the marketing potential before you pick a domain name. The right domain name can be one of your most effective Internet marketing tools.
2. Keywords
When an Internet user goes to a search engine and types in a word, this is called a keyword. Keywords are obviously very important since they are the building blocks of any Internet marketing campaign.
Using the right keywords on your website is both easy and tricky at the same time. Search engines read all the keywords in the code of your website, also called meta-tags, but they also read the keywords used in the actual text throughout your pages. Based on keyword relevance (and on some complicated algorithms…) they rank your pages.
For example, let’s say that your domain name is “importvehiclesedmonton.com”, you’ve used the keyword “import vehicles Edmonton” in your meta-tags, and you’ve also used the same term somewhere in the text of your pages. If someone goes to Google and types in “import vehicles in Edmonton” chances are that your page will show up in the first page of results.
Therefore it’s extremely important to choose the right keywords. Guesswork is definitely not the way to go when choosing your keywords. There are special software packages or online sites and services that can help you pick the right keywords. This is where you need the most help from a professional Internet marketer to help you narrow down your keyword choices and focus on the ones that will bring the most return to your business.
Targeted keywords draw targeted traffic (customers) to your website. Targeted traffic means more relevant customers who are actually interested in your products or services, and eventually more leads and a better return on your investment.
3. Organic SEO
The simplest method of organic SEO is writing and submitting keyword related articles around your products or services with links back to your site.
If we use Mr. Jones’ fine automobiles business mentioned above as an example, an effective and inexpensive way to promote his business would be for Mr. Jones to write and submit articles about import cars in the Edmonton area, or about servicing import cars, import car accessories in Edmonton etc. Then through this article he could link back to his website and improve his website ranking and traffic.
As other sites display your articles you gain valuable one-way links back to your site. Search engines then follow all of these links and rank your site highly for the keywords in these articles. For this reason the modest article may prove to be the single most important marketing tool you have in your arsenal.
Used properly organic SEO can help position your website in the search engines and bring in targeted traffic.
4. Pay per Click advertising
Pay per click (or PPC) advertising is a way to “buy” clicks directly from the search engines by displaying your website as the top search result for a specific keyword. If used effectively
PPC marketing can be an extremely useful and profitable marketing tool.
Again, if you want to use this PPC keyword advertising you’d most probably need to seek help from an Internet marketing professional. We have several examples of clients who only invested $100 or $200 on PPC keyword advertising and saw an excellent return on their investment. On the other hand we’ve also examples of clients who tried to use this tool on their own without any professional help and they went through thousands of dollars of PPC advertising and minimal return on their investment.
PPC keyword advertising needs a good coordination between your website’s keywords and the PPC keywords. It also needs a good understanding of your target audience, your market and your place in this market. It’s not an easy process to setup a good PPC advertising campaign but the benefits could be significant for your website and your business.
4. E-mail/Contacts Lists
The email or contacts list is a database of contacts, people (usually customers or prospective customers) who have given you permission to email or contact them. These could be subscribers who have opted-in to your online newsletter, or customers who have signed up to receive mailings from your company.
Newsletters are important Internet marketing tools that should be utilized by most online businesses. It is essential to keep an ongoing relationship with your customers (and your prospective customers) and build on it.
5. Blogs and RSS Feeds
Blogging has become a trend among many successful online ventures. More than that, search engines love blogs and RSS feeds because they provide continuous fresh content. Several newspaper articles and recent research has also shown that blogging is a very important tool for any online business.
Domain names, keywords, organic SEO, pay per click advertising, email and contact lists and blogging are effective online marketing tools that can help make your online business or your website extremely successful and profitable.
For more information about how we can help you utilize these tools in the best possible way, please contact us today.
e2media (e-squared media)
is an internet marketing and interactive advertising company based in Edmonton, AB offering affordable internet advertising, search engine optimization, web development and corporate identity services. Over the past 12 years we’ve worked with many organizations mainly in the Edmonton and Calgary area. We’re specialized in the automotive industry and in Internet marketing and web development in general, but we’ve also worked in several projects for small, medium and large size organizations ranging from website design, flash movies, databases, shopping carts, search engine optimization (SEO) to full Internet marketing campaigns and corporate identity design. For more information on any previous projects, or for client references, please click here to contact us.
