Online Marketing Basics For Noobs

Are you new to running your business online? Or perhaps you are bewildered by how poorly your site is doing in terms of traffic and sales? If so, read on.

This quick look at essential online marketing tips will help you get to know what’s required, and will make a positive impression on your figures. Ready? Then let’s take a look.

Your website

The most important thing to get right is your website. It needs to look great, work fast, and give people what they need. No amount of online marketing techniques is going to help you if your site is disorganized, confusing and breaks often. Get set up with a reputable web host, and make sure your design is perfect for what you want to achieve.

Check and analyze everything, at all times, to make sure that everything works well, and to identify areas that are slipping up. Even the smallest things can cause huge issues. Are you experiencing a lot of customers leaving your site at the checkout stage? It could be that your checkout process is too long for them. Make everything as easy as possible and you will see the benefits of your marketing efforts.

SEO

Now you have your website; it’s time to get people visiting. And the most efficient way of doing so is by using search engine optimization. SEO is considered a bit of a dark art by many marketers, but the truth is it is a lot easier than you think. There are plenty of resources online that can give you an in-depth look at the subject, although it can take a while to figure out.

You could also think about outsourcing your SEO to an external company. Make sure you do plenty of background checks and avoid anybody that uses ‘black hat’ techniques. While they might give you instant results, they can lead to penalties in the long-term.

PPC

PPC is another great way of getting more traffic to your website. Pay per click advertising is when you pay a search engine to appear in the ads that you see above or alongside their search page results. Every time your ad is shown, you get charged the amount you have bid – depending on the search term, this could be a few cents up to tens of dollars.

However, unless you are careful about the ads you publish, it can get very expensive. The more you display, the more you will pay – and it doesn’t guarantee any sales when whoever clicks on your ad arrives at your website. Read our guide to the pros and cons of PPC for more information.

Conversion

Conversion is probably the most important aspect of your website’s performance. You can have all the traffic in the world, but unless your products or services are presented in the best light possible, you won’t make much in the way of sales.

All copy should be razor-sharp and focused on making the visitor take action. They should be able to find what they want and buy it or sign up for it in as little time as possible. Head over to Entrepreneur.com for an excellent list of actionable strategies you can make with regards to website conversion.

We hope that this has helped you get to grips with some of online marketing’s essential ideas. Let us know how you got on!