Online Web Site Marketing

You have a great product or service, you’ve created a fine looking web site, and you are ready to start selling on the web. But first, someone has to see your site. You need a crash course in online web site marketing! There are three major ways to gain traffic to your site and numerous minor ones. The most important way to gain traffic to your site is to be available in the major search engines for people who are searching for your product or service. Successful online web site marketing is totally dependent upon how well you place in the top three search engines.

As a new site, your prime focus needs to be showing up in the organic search results of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. If your site doesn’t show up on the first two pages of Google and/or Yahoo, you simply won’t get much traffic. Little traffic to your site means few sales. Don’t waste any time or money on other forms of marketing until you have done everything possible to rank high in the search index of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This means you MUST learn Search Engine Optimization in order to be successful at online web site marketing.

After you are showing up well in the search indexes, you may then start to experiment with Adwords. This is Google’s pay per click search marketing. Although it is a legitimate aspect of online web site marketing, beware! You simply must take it slow. Using Adwords effectively takes much experimentation and study. You should read all you can about using Adwords for online web site marketing. Buy some books and read the forums on www.webmasterworld.com. For a beginner, it is extremely difficult to come out ahead with Adwords. Your first month of using Adwords will usually produce a net loss for your efforts. I am not trying to discourage you. Just be careful and watch your daily spend-rate.

The third major aspect of online web site marketing is getting links from other sites to your site. Not only does Google place a high importance on how many other sites link to you, those links on other sites will produce traffic to your site too. I believe it is wise to even pay for a few links when you are starting out. I wouldn’t pay more than $30.00 per month for a link though. Online web site marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Also, make sure you only buy links on sites that have a Google page rank of at least 5. Google will give the length more significance if the page it’s on has a good page rank. It is also important to have your link on pages that have similar content as the one being linked to. And be sure the link has your keyword phrase in it that your page is optimized for. Here again, go slow and experiment. And watch your site’s statistics for evidence the links are in fact sending traffic your way. Yes, online web site marketing takes a LOT of work!

Lastly, there are many minor ways to drive traffic to you site. Sometimes online web site marketing is all about your imagination. For example, get some business cards or flyers printed up and start handing them out at strategic locations. You could place some low-cost classified ads in local newspapers. Or see about getting your local newspaper to do an article on your new business for some free advertising to supplement your online web site marketing strategy. And be sure to submit your site to as many of the minor (non-spam) directories as possible. But only rarely should you consider paying for those kinds of placements.

Use your imagination and be creative! Good luck and have fun with your online web site marketing! With much patience and a ton of work you can be enjoying success on the web.