A Beginner's Introduction to Online Marketing You want your website to be number one in Google. I know this because this is what every single online marketer wants, and with good reason. Statistically, online searchers click the top three links that show up on their search and only a mere 20% will go beyond the first page of results. Unfortunately, getting to the number one spot is a lot more complicated than people think, and it might not be what you want for your company (or at least not something that you’re willing to pay for). In this short article, we’ll be discussing what goes into SEO or search engine optimization, the kind of results you should be looking for and the budget you should be setting for marketing online. To start with, let’s talk about setting your expectations. There are a lot of people who get started on marketing their website online with the goal of being number one in Google regardless of keywords. And while they do search for most searched keywords, they usually end up with a list that include ‘loans’ and ‘poker’ and ‘FIFA’, words that have nothing to do with their product. Targeting those keywords will actually be counter-productive in more ways than one. If you start measuring your success in terms of how close you get to the top of a search list, you’ll be disheartened and frustrated in a matter of weeks. There are huge companies out there pouring tens of thousands of dollars to push their websites up to those competitive first pages and for an online marketing newcomer, those odds are impossible to overcome. Also, while getting on top will theoretically get you more clicks, the quality of traffic you’ll get will be pretty bad. In other words, you might get a lot of visitors, but they won’t be interested in your product and they won’t be committing to a purchase any time soon. It will benefit your product more if you target the most searched and at the same time related keywords so that the traffic you generate will be very likely to respond to your pitch. And instead of seeing whether you’ve made it to number one in Google, measure your success by monitoring product and traffic conversion – the percentage of the traffic to respond to your call-to-action. Remember, traffic that doesn’t convert to sales just costs you money. But how much are you supposed to pay for marketing online? A lot of business owners tend to think of an internet marketing campaign as not so different from a brochure but it’s a lot more dynamic than that. Your budget should also depend on the kind of results you’re targeting – think of the sales you want to get then consider how much you would pay a salesman for those results. As you make progress, you can broaden your objectives, increasing your budget as you go. Knowing how to measure success and what kind of budget to allot is a good way to start a successful internet marketing campaign. These first few steps, along with determining relevant keywords and creating a USP or a unique selling point, should
be your starting point followed by a better understanding of the importance of analytics and monitoring traffic. If you want to learn more about getting started on marketing online and what the experts do for their own campaigns, you can subscribe to our newsletter where we can help you get more results while working less. Visit http://bishopstewart.com/a-beginners-introduction-to-online-marketing/ for more information about A Beginner’s Introduction to Online Marketing Other articles you will find interesting: Email Marketing Tips Part 1 Email Marketing Tips Part 2 A Mind for Success Creating A Killer E-book Title Part-1 This Could be Be Killing Your Business Growth List Building Strategies Part 1