by Paul Gregory at 11:45 am on July 9, 2009
Online Marketing or Internet Marketing can be a complicated business and there are lots of aspects to consider when taking on a complete Online Marketing project.
However to sum up the whole process we can segregate Online Marketing into 3 main areas, these are Traffic Generation, Conversion Analysis and Repeat Business. The following will go into more detail about each area.
Traffic Generation
One of the first things that need to be considered is how am I going to get visitors to my website?
This can be achieved in various ways but the method that will generate the most traffic is Search Engine Optimisation. This is the process of ranking highly in what is called the natural search results of a search engine. The first step in this process involves Keyword Research. This refers to figuring out what words and phrases most relate to your business and which of these words people actually search for and then incorporate them into your websites content and metadata. This then allows the search engines to know which words are important to your website. There are many other aspects to SEO such as Competitor Analysis, External & Internal Linking and Social Media to name a few all of which need to be considered when taking on an SEO project.
Another method of traffic generation is Pay Per Click advertising. This uses the same principles as SEO in the respect that it uses keywords. However with PPC advertising you bid on the position your advert will show depending on the keyword. The beauty of this type of advertising is you only pay when someone clicks on your advert.
Conversion Analysis
The next part of Online Marketing refers to Conversions. Conversions are sales or enquiries depending on the nature of your business. As part of your project you will want to monitor and analyse how many sales/enquiries you have achieved. A good way of doing this is to attach some analytical package (such as Google Analytics) to your website allowing you to see visitor activity and where any sales/enquiries came from.
However on the flip side if you are not achieving any sales/conversions you will want to know why. Maybe your website simply isn’t appealing enough to provoke a sale/enquiry, maybe you’re not giving the customer enough information or maybe your contact form is hard to find. These things can all be monitored and acted upon that is why it is so important to analyse your websites statistics regularly.
Repeat Business
Once you have achieved sales/enquiries unless you are only interested in one off sales then it is important to encourage people to repeat buy. This can be achieved through online marketing using techniques such as Email Marketing Campaign and well maintained blogs or forums.
Email Marketing gives you the opportunity to send a message to people who have already shown an interest in your product or service by signing up for newsletters or regular updates. This is what’s known as a Permission List as the people on the list have given their consent for you to contact them.
Another method of encouraging repeat business is to keep a well maintained blog or forum. This method allows people to interact with your business and gives them assurances that they can air any grievances or concerns quickly and easily. A blog is a great way to keep your customers informed on latest products, offers or company news and allows them to feel part of the community.
To sum up you will need to plan and consider each of these areas to succeed in your Online Marketing project. However the rewards for successful implementation are well worth the time and effort.
