Internet Marketing- you hear people talking about it more and more. But what exactly is it? What kind of strategies does it include? There is a lot of confusion around this term. Some people think that it’s spamming and all the stuff that make your computer crash or freeze. Well, it is not. And just to clear it up for you, I listed below the key components of Internet Marketing that businesses tend to focus on mostly:
1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
So why would you need SEO services? Well, if you have a business website that isn’t getting much traffic- that’s no good to you. SEO improves the volume and quality of traffic to your website. In other words, it makes you more visible on the Internet. Nobody is using yellow pages anymore, when a person is looking for products or services- they just go on Google and search for it. And if you don’t appear on the 1st page- they will probably never find you.
Enter some keywords that you think you should be found for on Google and see what page you appear on; and now think, when you have searched for something in the past – how many times have you looked at page 2 or 3? If you’re not on page 1- most likely potential customers will never find you.
So, SEO helps your website appear higher in the search engine listings, making it more likely that you will be contacted before your competitors. And that’s why more and more businesses are investing in Search Engine Optimisation services- because it gives you long-term benefits and results.
2. Google AdWords/ Pay Per Click (PPC)
Many people start off with Google AdWords before they start anything else- why? – Well, Google AdWords give you instant results. After setting up your Google AdWord profile fully and creating your ads, they will start appearing on the first page just after 10-15 minutes, which means instant traffic to your website!
But what’s very important is that your website is easy to navigate, so when people click on your ads and are directed to your website, that they could easily interact with your page and possibly turn into a new customer.
Second of all, it’s very important to have your ads wells designed and assigned the best keywords for your company. If not, people will click on your ads, find it irrelevant and leave, which is very costly. That’s why many businesses choose to avail of professional services, at least to have them correctly set up and get some training. But of course it is always the best to have PPC specialists do the Google AdWord management for you, since they know the best tactics on how to decrease your PPC costs and make your ads extremely efficient.
3. Social Media
Social Media is very important and if you don’t have a Facebook page yet, after finishing reading this, you should go and set it up! Facebook and Twitter are the key social websites that you should have your business on. They both are free and the possibilities are endless! Once you set up your social media pages start promoting them by asking friends to become fans of you or to follow you on twitter and encourage them to spread the word. Next is to get your existing customers and start promoting your pages on all marketing campaigns, add them when sending e-mails, and etc.
Most importantly don’t forget to interact with your fans, post interesting content, answer their questions and it’s always good to offer special treats to them!
4. Mobile Optimisation (Mobile Websites)
Mobile Optimisation is becoming increasingly more important. Nearly 50% of Irish mobile users can access Internet on their phones. But for them to see a website properly it has to be mobile optimised- if not it will appear funny and difficult to navigate. In this case the person will leave to an optimised site that they can use easily. Which means, when people are searching for your services and/or products using their mobile Internet, they will leave to a competitor’s mobile optimised site if your page won’t properly work.
Now identify if your target audience would use mobile internet often or rarely to search for your type of products or services- and then it should be clear, if it is very important for you to have your website mobile optimised or not.
If inofrmation were soccer, this would be a goooooal!