The way we do business is changing rapidly. From VoIP,
video conferencing, email support, telephone answering services, and the
almighty Internet. As a business owner we are faced with hundreds of
decisions our parents and grandparents never had to contend with.
Some of you keep hearing from other business associates that
Internet Marketing is the greatest method of increasing business and
building a foundation for customer support. The only problem is, you've just
learned how to send emails to people! Never mind learning about SEO, web
design strategies, content analysis, pay per click, ROI, etc!
Do you hire an SEO company or do you learn yourself?
Investing time into your company is what we business owners do best but, in
many cases, when it comes to learning new methods we quickly open our
wallets to anyone out there who seems like the right person to help with
your situation. This is the worst possible decision you can make.
Diving into the Internet Marketing community with your wallet open will
result in a disaster if you aren't properly trained on how to spend your
money wisely. The key is not to hire an SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
company to take your money and promote your business behind your back. Try
finding someone who offers you their "training services" in order to train
yourself or someone within your organization to learn more about what is
required online, how much effort it entails, and what pitfalls to avoid.
As a business owner, if you blindly search online and pick a company, you
have no idea what you could be getting yourself into. There are no secrets
to promoting your business online, only a lot of hard work. That being said,
anyone with a computer can easily learn how to get their company high search
engine rankings. Search engines don't look to see whether or not you're
running a scam. No, they are concentrated on delivering relevant results for
your search terms.
Old Fashioned Marketing Tactics
In the old days (and still practiced today), business owners would devise
their own marketing plan through print media, business cards, postcards,
flyers, brochures, newspapers, magazines, TV ads, and radio ads. By doing
this, the company could track their results by trial and error and really
find out what truly works for their industry.
Old fashioned marketing is a simple trial and error process. So is the
Internet. Unfortunately, all too many business owners don't have a clue how
to start their own Internet Marketing process and they fail to even put
their foot in the water. Instead, many business owners simply hire anyone
they can find that seems reputable and then turn a blind eye and say;
"Here's my budget, you are the professional, you tell me what to do". This
is simply preposterous. You've worked so hard to get to where you are now by
learning and adapting and as soon as it comes to marketing your business
online, you simply shut down.
I hope that this article has awoken some of you. Don't be afraid to dive
into the Internet's vast realm of marketing potential. So what if you fail
the first time around. When we started out, we had no idea what we were
doing, 3 years later our website ranks higher than many other internet
marketing companies world wide.
The ULTIMATE secret to internet marketing is simple...
A concept I call "T.I.M.E."
T - Try and try again
I - Internet changes all the time
M - Marketing opportunities are around every corner
E - Eventually you too can succeed
Think of it this way (Illustration only)
Here is a timeline of your internet marketing campaign:
Start date - Research only: June 7th, 2005
Hired a website designer - August 31st, 2005
Website Complete - October 15th, 2005
Website launch - October 20th, 2005
Started an internet marketing campaign - November 1st, 2005
Started a Pay Per Click campaign - November 10th, 2005
Made a sale - November 15th, 2005
Increased our website’s link popularity - January 1st, 2006
Website gets hit by the Google Sandbox Effect - January 20th, 2006
Increased our Pay Per Click campaign - February 5th, 2006
Made some changes to the website - February 21st, 2006
Increase the website’s link popularity - February 28th, 2006
Got listed in the Yahoo directory - March 3rd, 2006
So here you are 10 months out of the gate and your website may still be
"locked in the Google sandbox" ( Search for "Google Sandbox" in Google for
an explanation). Your link popularity is just starting to grow a little bit.
Hopefully you haven't tried to link to everyone you can find and are
actually linking to companies that are directly related to your business.
Your PPC campaign is doing good. People are finally starting to come through
Yahoo and MSN search results. You can sometimes find your company in the
200th spot within search results in Google and you are now wondering why
this is taking so long.
Welcome to the world of marketing your company on the Internet!!!
This timeline representation from above is just something to show you how "T.I.M.E."
is the key of success on the internet and all we are required to do is keep
plugging away and keep learning more every chance we get.
For most people who simply open up their wallets, they would have learned
nothing in those 10 months and for everyone else starting an internet
marketing campaign, those who didn't simply just open their wallets, their
websites are probably 10 times further than yours!
In Conclusion
Learn more about how to increase your marketing campaign on the Internet. If
you have to, hire someone in-house who can learn for you and give you
updates on everything. If you truly need to hire an SEO company make sure
it's for the right reasons like "starting and finishing a marketing campaign
with you learning in the process", or "enhancing a campaign that is already
in place", or "to revise your website’s conversion rate" or "create a
impactful key word optimization campaign", etc. Take your time and use "T.I.M.E."
to increase your business slowly but effectively on the internet.
I hope you've enjoyed this article!
About the Author:
Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. His
company specializes in building communities online and effectively marketing
their clients to the right audience. Visit the Smartads Network Today!
International: www.smartads.info
Canada: http://www.smartads.ca
Article source: ArticleWorld.net
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