Which Online Marketing Options Are Best?
There is no doubt that most businesses need to market their services and/or products in some method in order to succeed. Finding the marketing methods that have the highest ROI is often a challenge for businesses with very few attaining the level of satisfaction with their marketing plan that is ideal. This is especially true in our dynamic world that is in constant change and commotion with consumers being bombarded with subliminal marketing messages every minute of the day. This sometimes leaves us scratching our heads with marketing methods that worked great in the past only to take a sudden turn and fail overnight.

There are few that would challenge the fact that technology has had a marvelous impact on marketing strategies in our day. Having a website was somewhat of a luxury to a business even a few decades ago; this has now become a necessity. There are new options available to advertise via technology at an overwhelming rate. One of the more recent successful technology marketing avenues is the internet offering several different sublets of online marketing options to choose from. Choosing which online marketing strategy will bring up the bottom line and have the highest ROI can be somewhat of a mystery at times; how can you weed out the winners from the mediocre performers?

Here is a list of internet marketing avenues that almost any business can experiment with. The success of each avenue will depend largely on the business; some will work better than others and there is no single option that is far superior to the others.

Website Redesign
Having a website is commonplace for most businesses, if you do not have one you can not accomplish much else on the internet in terms of marketing or sales. There is a difference between having a website and having a good website. Having a well-oiled marketing machine online is something that is a rare find when searching through the millions of websites we stumble across every day. If you website is not fine-tuned then directed website visitors from marketing campaigns will provide minimal benefits.

Take this for example: you have the best widget in your market for sale in your store, you decide to put up a billboard ad and customers start flooding in however no one buys. When you are closing one night wondering why no one has bought anything you glance around your store and notice a few things. It is difficult to find the widget, they are scattered in random places, your store is messy, has garbage on the floor, and the cash register is hidden in the backroom. This could be considered an extreme example but this is exactly how a website can be perceived by website visitors if it is not built correctly.

When looking over your website and preparing for an overhaul there are many questions to ask yourself. Is your navigation straight forward and easy to use? Does the website look professional or does it give the impression that your 14-year old nephew designed it? Do you avoid introduction pages? Can someone clearly understand what your business offers in less than 3 seconds? Is there a clear call to action on every page? Is the information provided that which your potential customers are seeking? These are just a few items of many that you could use to analyze your website.

Who Is This For?
** Those that have never spent any time on your website to see where people are coming from, what they are clicking on, why they are leaving.
** Those that receive occasional complaints about how difficult it is to use your website.
** Those that have a large amount of website visitors with very few sales or leads.

How Do I Get Started?
** Do a focus group study: gather up some of your clients and make a survey based on their experience with your website.
** Hire a consultant to take an outsider look at your website and offer suggestions.
** Install web analytics software on your website so you can gather information about your visitor’s activities. Google offers a free analytical service you can install quickly and easily.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the art of getting your website to magically appear in a search engine’s (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) natural results for a targeted keyword phrase. Ok, it’s not really magic, but it can easily be classified it as a science. It is a very complicated and time-consuming process capable yielding wonderful results if you have the patience and knowledge.

In the early 90’s SEO was a new and untapped form of advertising. At that time all you had to do in order to get ranked in a search engine was add a keyword meta tag to your website. For example if you sold blue widgets you would simply add “blue widgets” to your keyword meta tag on your website, go to google and type in “blue widgets” and your website would be there on the top of the page. Those days are long gone yet that by-gone era mentality still exists among many business owners. There is no such thing as a successful $39/month SEO campaign, use the money more effectively by going out to dinner one night instead. Although it is becoming more expensive to compete online for popular keyword phrases the ROI is incredible if you can manage to climb to the top of the rankings for well-researched keyword phrases.

SEO is accomplished through a myriad web of tweaking thousands of factors on your website. Some of the most common and necessary factors include title tags, content, text placement, use of bold, use of italics, incoming links to your website, keyword research, and heading text. There are also black hat techniques that are shady to say the least that search engines may penalize you for implementing. Some such tactics could include using a font color that is the same as the background color of the website, using the same words repeated over and over, spamming meta tags on your webpage, and copying other website’s content. These techniques should be avoided as your website could be blacklisted or removed from a search engine’s database if they recognize the black hat technique.

Who Is This For
** Those that offer a product and/or service that is searched for online in adequate amounts and online competition is not extreme.
** Those that have never done SEO on their website before; a short fast tune-up on a website that has never had any SEO aspects integrated will have dramatic initial results.
** Those that have customers that are internet and technology savvy.
** Those that are patient and want a long-term high ROI marketing option.

How Do I Get Started?
** Find out if people are searching for your products/services. One free tool to find this out is at overture.
** Do a search in Google or Yahoo for your keywords to see how many web pages are competing for that search phrase. As a general rule anything with more than 5 million competing websites will be more difficult to gain a ranking on the first page of results.
** Get proposals from a SEO consultant or SEO firm. Make sure you ask for referrals to avoid scams.

Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is very similar to SEO as both are using search engines to get a website to appear in the search results page for a specific keyword phrase. The most common form of pay per click is with search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Natural SEO results in Google are in the middle white section of results. PPC results are those in the top and bottom with the blue background and on those appearing in the right sidebar. PPC results are quarantined off by the title of Sponsored Links.

Although PPC is generally a short-term lower ROI marketing strategy when compared to SEO it does have some benefits. You have control of your budget, it can be turned off or on in an instant, the results are very easy to track, and you only pay for actual website visitors. There are other large publishers that offer internal PPC systems that can be slightly cheaper than search engines if you are targeting a niche market.

To start a PPC campaign you need to create an account with a PPC system such as Google Adwords. You need to choose keyword phrases that are related to your website, write some ads to appear to potential website visitors, set a budget, and click go. You will then start receiving website visitors and at any time you can cancel the campaign or put it on hold. PPC is a good option for those who have not yet tried any type of online marketing.

Who Is This For?
** Those that are not sure if online marketing is for them or not. You can run a test PPC campaign for a few hundred dollars to analyze if it will be profitable or not.
** Those that are not yet ready to start a full-out SEO campaign.
** Those that need a short burst of extra website traffic.

How Do I Get Started?
** Create an account with Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing.
** Look at PPC Directory to find other smaller websites that offer PPC.
** Get proposals from a consultant or internet marketing firm. Ask for examples of previous clients and how they were successful.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is slightly newer than SEO and PPC. It is usually extremely successful or an absolute disaster. Whether your affiliate marketing campaign is a superstar or flop will largely depend on your business, how you setup the campaign, and how you continually manage the campaign. Here are the basics of affiliate marketing: first you get website owners (it could be anyone) to place a link on their website to your website, they become your affiliate. If a website visitor clicks on your affiliate’s link to your website a tracking cookie is placed on the potential customer’s computer; if they end up making a purchase on your website you then pay the affiliate a commission based on the sale.

This is extremely appealing compared to SEO and PPC as you only pay for an actual sale. Sounds great huh? Then why is it not as common as it should be? The biggest obstacle is finding good affiliates. If you take a look at affiliate marketing from their stand point they have all the risk and therefore will not engage in your program unless they feel it will be extremely profitable. The area where most affiliate marketing programs fall short is that they do not actively search for potential affiliates; rather they throw a link up on their website and call it done. If you put the time and effort into an affiliate marketing program you should come out ahead in the end.

Who Is This For?
** Those that have high profit margins. If you can only give an affiliate $1 per sale you will not attract very many people, any affiliate offer over $50 is usually very appealing.
** Those that want to place all the sales risk on others.
** Those that have the time and resources to actively communicate with future and current affiliates.

How Do I Get Started?
** Although large managed affiliate marketing systems are usually expensive and offer minimal benefits they are easy to setup and start quick. You can look into commission junction, linkshare or shareasale.
** Hire a programmer to develop and implement an internal custom affiliate marketing system.
** Do some research: contact a few website owners that you feel receive a large amount of qualified traffic that could become your potential customers. Ask the website owner if they would be interested in participating in an affiliate program with you or not. Find out at what price they would be motivated to join in.

Blogs, Podcasts, and Social Networking
Some of the most recent forms of online advertising are blogs, podcasts, and social networking website such as myspace.com. These are becoming more widespread as time ticks on. These forms of online marketing generally take a non-direct approach to attaining new clients. The focus is first on building a relationship with the potential client hoping that in time you will earn their trust. Once you have earned their trust they will make a purchase or spread the word to others on your behalf.

Blogs are similar to an online journal; they can be personal or professional. Having a successful blog requires time and effort; if you can not devote time to it do not start one. Podcasts are similar as they require even more time than a blog and a little more technical knowledge. You must also market your blogs and podcasts as you would your own website; successful blogs and podcasts are ones that eventually are self-sustaining in generating new website visitors from other readers or listeners.

Social networking is a broad term that can have different meanings depending on who you talk to. It is closely related to public relations and viral marketing strategies. The goal could be to generate hype about a product/service, provide non-biased information on subjects relating to your industry, create a niche network of potential customers, or get others to promote your products/services without you asking. These advanced online marketing strategies can have great results if implemented properly.

Who Is This For?
** Those that like to experiment with new technology that is somewhat risky but has the potential to be very successful.
** Those that are good at networking or a ‘people-person’.
** Those that want to do some marketing on their own for a low cost requiring a large amount of personal time.

How Do I Get Started?
** Talk to others who have blogs, podcasts, or social networking to see how they have become successful.
** Hire a consultant to take an outsider look at your website and offer suggestions.
** Start a free blog at blogger, typepad or wordpress.

These are just a few of the many options to take advantage of technology this year to help your business grow. Seek advice from others who are involved in internet marketing and you are sure to have a successful year online.

Eric Morgan is an internet marketing manager at MWI. He has more than a decade of experience working in the IT arena, specifically web design and internet marketing. He holds a Management B.S. degree from the University of Utah.

digg it!   Add to del.icio.us