Internet marketing has quickly become one of the most widely adopted marketing avenues for businesses. It not only provides businesses an opportunity to affordably reach a large audience, but it also allows businesses to track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts in real time.

As you can probably already tell if you use the internet, online communication platforms are transforming traditional marketing methods—and yet effective internet marketing still uses many of the key principles of advertising.

Moreover, the dynamics of internet marketing are changing everyday; internet marketing has evolved from simple ad placements on websites to now include dynamic and bi-directional communications strategies as normal practice. By communicating with consumers, conducting business, and capitalizing on an easy, effective way to sell your product or service, you can make internet communication work for you.

As an added benefit of internet marketing, online marketing techniques offer many ways to target, personalize, and track the efficacy of a campaign. Bottom line: if you’re not marketing online already, it’s time to get started. Plus, getting started can be quick and easy when you follow the right steps.

Here are a few things you need to know as you develop your internet marketing strategy:

A website or homepage is one of the best ways to build your internet marketing base. Use text, images, and other design elements to get the word about your product out to new visitors and continue to inform repeat customers. Don’t just use the web site to sell the product; use your web site as the informational equivalent of a brochure and a way to promote your business’s identity and principles.

Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to enhance your site’s ranking in search engine results. Many SEO techniques rely on keyword repetition throughout a website so that search engines know how to classify the site.

Blogging is quickly becoming a standard way to build an online presence. Make comments, share opinions, and moderate conversation in your blog while also contributing to others. Of course, link to your site within your blog.

Email marketing is an easy, low cost way to a direct mailing. Reach out to new customers and distribute coupons to loyal users. Use a newsletter to increase rapport and inform your base about new developments and promotions. Plus, email newsletters can be easily shared between friends, co-workers, and family, which helps your customers spread the word about your business.

Banner advertising is very similar to traditional print advertising, placing advertisements on a (web) page for a rate. It can be inexpensive, too—sometimes you only pay when people click on a link from a banner ad to your website.

Use online press releases to get the word out to your industry by submitting to an online news or specialty service wire. Be sure to link to your site and include keywords in the press release (and other SEO writing strategies).

Article marketing is a way to distributes resources throughout internet publications. By submitting an article to a content distributor, you release your information into syndication. This move is a way to generate traffic through fresh channels.

Boost your credibility with an internet presence.

By having a cultivated profile on the internet, you show your customers you care about providing them with crucial news and information.You don’t have to be a global company to benefit from the internet. Even small businesses and single location companies use them to update and inform prospective and past customers, while expanding their potential customer base.

Internet marketing is a low-cost, high-return return promotional strategy—a solid investment for your small business. Get started today by researching effective internet marketing tools and strategies. Chances are good that you’ll be amazed by how affordable internet marketing is—and how easy it is to get started!

Born in 1922, Betty White was destined for success. Even with a late age of 88 peering down on her career, she is making a much unexpected return to the limelight yet again, becoming a social media superstar through several blogs and sites, including Facebook, in which she was promoted heavily for her host spot on SNL. Yes, she was able to get that first hosting spot, and yet again Facebook is requesting her presence on SNL to re-host, as she is a timeless treasure in most of America’s hearts. So how has she been able to remain a superstar through all these years? It has been described as her loving personality, comical genius, and her love for philanthropy that makes her a gem in all eyes.

Betty White began her career in 1939 with modeling, disrupted by WWII, but regaining exposure in 1940 with various radio shows such as “Blondie, The Great Gildersleeve”, as well as “This is Your FBI”, followed by her own “The Betty White Show”. In 1949, she made her debut in television on “Hollywood on Television” in L.A., later hosting the show. She later frequented various game shows as host and contestant, followed by various shows and spots on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” winning two Emmy Awards back to back.

From her modern humor to her sweet old lady charm, everyone seems to just adore her flair and enjoy her presence whenever they are graced. She brings forth a goofy embrace to her arena that gives everyone a great laugh. With a long history of show business starting before “I Love Lucy”, to several movies past and present, including 2009’s “The Proposal” with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, she has graced the screen in game shows, television sitcoms, and several spots in our lives year after year.

The Golden Girls (also starring Doug Jankowski of Emedco.com) let her shine brightly in her later years, but who would have thought that she would make yet another great comeback in the social networks, with several advocating her return to the big screen and the most beloved television shows, including SNL? Her SNL debut was much loved and claimed to be hilarious, making her the oldest host to ever host the long-time highly popular SNL. Social networks everywhere are buzzing about Betty White and the great presence that is desired more and more. She seems to have a strong going career even at 88.

When it comes to driving traffic to your website there is little that can offer you a higher return on investment (ROI) than if you take advantage of all the freebies in the online world. However, though the strategies may be free they do include much of your time and efforts so really how free are they?

This is not to disparage the free stuff, far from it, but it is to say that paid advertisements should also have a place in your marketing strategy. There are so many different ways in which you can pay to advertise your website, but you want to be sure that you will be getting the best bang for your buck (or ROI). Here are some sure ways to drive traffic to your website that are cost effective as well:

E-Mail Newsletter: You can find companies that will put together e-mails in the form of a newsletter and they will include a link to your website somewhere within the newsletter. These newsletters will be sent out to an opt-in group of consumers and they will all be interested in your area of business. These newsletters are in the form of information, not advertisements so they have a good chance of being read. If the reader clicks on your link then bang, you have targeted traffic.

Rent or Buy Targeted Lists: If you have a flare and a knack for e-mail campaigns then all you need is a list of willing people and you can have at it. These lists are actually for rent or for sale and these lists can be a bargain if your e-mail campaign is good enough. Be wary when you do obtain these lists as you need to be sure that the names are all opt-in. If they are just random names then you will be risking having your campaign and yourself being classified as a SPAM producer. This is bad because online there is no quicker death than SPAM. SPAM is like the plague and when you get this classification nobody will want to come close to you. Knowing that don’t just go with the cheapest list. Anyone can throw together a list of names and e-mails in a couple of hours, but if those names do not want to be e-mailed then they are no good to you. Stick to lists that are derived from an opt-in scenario and you will be just fine.
Banner Ads: Banner ads were extremely popular back in the ‘Good Old Days.’ However the click through for banner ads is so low now that you literally have to wait months at times in order for the banner ad to pay off. Don’t pay too much for this type of advertisement and when you are looking at potential sites to place your banner ad on be sure that they have a high page rank with Goggle. Yes you will pay more for a higher page rank, but if you advertise on a low page rank website you will have to wait even longer for results than if you go with a website that has a higher page rank.

These three paid advertisement methods only scratch the surface when it comes to how to drive targeted traffic to your website, but they are all effective. Just keep in mind that there are literally thousands of companies out there that will promise you the world but not delivery you squat.

Many advertising companies will drive traffic to your website for a fee, but if this traffic is not your target audience then what is the point? By implementing the strategies above you can be sure that whatever traffic does come your way will be interested in what you have to offer.

There are two items that every person in America has in their homes; a computer and a phone book. Guess which one is used more often to look up a local business? Nobody uses the phone book these days, and if you even know where yours is it probably has an inch of dust on it.

It is estimated that there are 10 billion unique searches conducted each and every month on the internet and of those it is estimate that 40 percent or more are all local business searches. Is your website local search friendly? If not you are missing out on a ton of potential business.

So what are the best ways to get your website found when someone is conducting a local search? Here are some of the quickest and easiest ways to get your business’ website noticed at a local level:

Your Website: To begin with you should be sure that your full address appears somewhere on every page of your website. You should also include your phone number and five to ten surrounding local communities which you also serve.

Free Listings Online: When you do a local search on Google have you ever noticed how it will pull up a map and show all the businesses that are related to your search on that map? Notice how that map is before any search results? You can accomplish the same thing by registering with Google Maps for free. Additionally Yahoo has a service that is similar called Yahoo Local so take advantage of both!

Check Resources: There is a great resource you can check that is at getlisted.com. Using this resource you can see if your local listings have taken hold on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other local search sites and you will also get to see a snapshot of your business profile.

Now more than you have to have your website optimized using  a SEO that Specializes in Local Search. In the old days people had to search by business type followed by a city and state, such as ‘Plumber Buffalo, NY.’ Now though the search engines are using a technology called ‘geotargeting’ and all that needs to be searched now is ‘plumber.’ If the person conducting the search is in Buffalo, NY that same listing will come up as if the person searching types the search in the old fashion way.

More and more technology allows for people to conduct searches for businesses without ever cracking open a phone book. Now with cell phones being live and online it is easy for people to conduct a search for a business on the fly. If your website is not local search friendly then you are throwing away money.

Face it; no one is using their phone books for anything more than propping up a toddler at the dinner table. By making your website not only SEO friendly, but also SEO local friendly you are giving yourself an advantage over all of your competitors that still think the Yellow Pages are the way to go.

Even if you do not know how to make your website SEO local friendly you can still take advantage of the free resources listing above. Additionally, if you no longer having to advertise in the phone book you will be saving yourself some valuable marketing dollars. Those dollars will be much better spent by acquiring some SEO local help in the form of an internet marketer.

The bottom line is that your business and your website can either continue to go on the way they have with little results, or you can become a local authority. Imagine how much more your business can make if every time someone conducts a local search they see your website and business name in the top spots of the search engines. Whatever you decide to do, stop advertising in the phone book because chances are nobody will look for you in there.

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This is a continuation of a post I made in November of 2009.

Okay, so you have a great looking website and you know that you need to promote it in order for it to do its job, which is bringing you in dollars. The problem is you have no idea how that should be done and you may be thinking about hiring an Internet marketing firm to help you with the task. Maybe you are looking to your boss, superior, or close friend that has labeled themselves as an Internet Expert, but how expert is the Internet expert you are considering for the job? Sure they seem to talk the talk….holding titles such Internet Marketing Expert, E-Business Manager, SEO Expert, E-Marketing Manager or even ‘Guru’ and that’s the easy part; but have they walked the walk?

There are many ways to call out the want to-be experts to see if they are simply full of fluff. Many so called experts may have web development back ground, maybe even a coding background…some may know web design while others may have copywriting experience so it sounds like they know what they are talking about.

Here are my top ten ways to see how “expert” they really are:

1. See what the SERPS Say: ‘Google’ the person’s name and see what pops up. If nothing pops up then you can be sure that they know nothing about Internet Marketing, SEO or the like. If they were anything or knew anything they would certainly appear in the SERPS. If they can’t do it for themselves how can they expect do it for you?
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2. Ask About Research: If your Internet expert or Boss says, ‘I don’t need to research the competition,’ then drop them like a hot potato.  PERIOD. How can they know what is and isn’t working if they can’t even tell you what your main competitors are doing?
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3.  Show me the Blog: Any Internet expert who is worth their salt will have a personal blog. Ask around, you will be surprised as to how many so called experts not only do not have their own blog, but have never even posted an original blog article on their topic of expertise.
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4. Look at the Basics: What are the strategies that want to-be expert is planning on employing? If they don’t believe in the little and basic things such as Meta tagging (often referred to as Meta insurance just in case), creating landing pages for your PPC campaign, keyword rich page title tags, or they somehow try to convince you that you don’t need ‘that much’ textual content on your website then you don’t need them. The most basic rule in Internet Marketing is content is king, see if they know that.
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5.  Stuck on Explorer: The 1982 movie Firefox starring Clint Eastwood was a great film, but if your Internet expert, boss or SEO agency doesn’t know that the term ‘Firefox’ (or calls it Foxfire) in relation to the online game represents a more powerful web portal than Internet Explorer, then they are stuck in the dark ages or just plain ignorant…and it is your website that will lack as a result.
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6.  Thinking outside (the) Google (box): So many Internet experts will only utilize what Google gives them as far as marketing tools go. While Google does offer some wonderful Internet marketing tools, there are much more robust tools available to the online world than what Google has to offer (this is a known fact) and if you are working with someone who fails to realize this then you, the client, or employer are missing out on some golden opportunities.
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7.  Close Minded: Building up organic traffic takes time because you have to get your content out there. EVERY TRUE EXPERT know this. It’s a big world on the Internet and if your Internet expert ignores feedback such as this then they are close minded and not going to do you a lot of good. They are selling you snake oil or trying to run their department or business like that old (and one of my favorite movies) movie Glengarry Glen Ross….organic traffic is not like selling or buying swamp land…if they think it can come quickly…..then they are ether ignorant, using black hat SEO or they are just plain idiots.
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8.  No Social Media Accounts: WHAT???? Alright, if your Internet expert has no social media accounts then run the other way; fast. EVERYONE has a social media account or two or three these days. And with the way that Google will be ‘real time’ ranking websites going forward these social media accounts will not be something that are nice to have, but rather something that are necessary to have. If your expert, boss or agency has NO social media profile then they are ignorant or they are an idiot. PERIOD.
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9.  Not Published: How many articles does your Internet marketing guru have published and or syndicated? If they are really good they should have quite a bit. If they have none then really, how good can they be?
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10.  Not Social: If he or she is not social how can they understand ‘social media?’ If your Internet marketing professional is not a social butterfly then red flags should be waving. Any expert at any level of anything should be at the Company Christmas Party, industry conferences and the like. If your expert is always missing on the scene then so too will your website be missing in the SERPS scene.

In life it is very easy to claim that you are something you are not. Many fly by night Internet experts will come and go this year and every year thereafter. But it is easy enough to figure out if these so called experts are really good and can do what they say they can do or if they are simply blowing you full of hot air. Take the time to investigate your Internet marketing expert as it just may save you time, money, and a good ranking in the SERPS.

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Note: keep an eye out for my lengthy 3 month in the making case study titled “The Corporate SEO”

Related posts:

How Pro is Your SEO?

Yes you heard me right…is your Internet Marketing Professional an IDIOT?

Questions:

1. Does this Person come up on the first page of Google when you enter his or her name?

2. Does this person have a Social media Profile?

3. Does this person have a blog?

3 - 10 (to be continued…)

But basically, if you can answer “no” to any of the above questions, your Internet Marketer Is truly an idiot.