4.
Re: marketing Oct 16, 2007 11:46 AM
in response to:
ThreeStars
Having a website is useful, but knowing how to market that business online is critical. There are several methods you could try:
1. Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is using other related sites to help market your business. Essentially, you would put a link on their site to your site, and pay them a portion of any sale or pay them to refer leads to you.
2. SEO: Search engine optimization consists of both optimizing your site towards certain keywords that people are looking for as well as having incoming links from sites that are related to your company. Search engine optimization takes time, but over the course of six months, can pay huge dividends. It is not something you learn overnight, so hiring an expert might be worth it.
3. SEM: Search engine marketing means you are paying to advertise on search engines like Google and MSN. SEM operates on a pay-per-click model, meaning as soon as you stop paying the ads, you don't get any more clicks from them. SEM is easier to set up than SEO and has more immediate dividends, but overall can cost you more in the long run.
4. Word of mouth and buzz marketing: Consumers are so bombarded with advertisements, they often trust what they read in articles and from people they know over any ad they see. This obviously requires connections and/or a strong sense of your market, but can end up costing you less and proving more effective.
Marketing a site online is not easy, so you might want to hire a professional if you can afford it. If not, there are many blogs, articles, and books on the subject that should be able to help you out. Here is our blog:
http://onlinebusiness.volusion.com
Regards,
Michelle Greer
http://www.volusion.com
