Website marketing made simple

Here is a simple do-it-yourself recipe for online marketing that can get you better results from your website. Do keep in mind that while its fairly simple to do all the things listed below, it takes a lot of discipline and work to get results. Its not for people who want a lot of constant excitement in their life!

Write a blog

Create a blog for your company and update it at a frequency that you think you can manage in a disciplined manner. If you decide to update it weekly, make sure you do it weekly. Keep it simple and straightforward and in a language your customers use. Remember you are not trying to show them how much you know; you are just trying to show them that there are things that they don’t know about you or your service. Make the articles interesting so people will come regularly to read them.

Post to business groups and forums

One of the easiest ways to increase your site visitors is to post solutions or participate in discussions in online forums. On the web, like in everything else, you need to give before you can receive. So make sure to provide credible tangible solutions so people respect your knowledge.

Every time you write a blog post, make sure you announce it in your business groups and forums. And of course, consistent posting to one or two forums is better than inconsistent posting to a million forums. So choose the forums judiciously which have the audience for your business.

Create a twitter account and broadcast your blog and other news

A twitter post is a succinct message that can be used to convey what you are involved in at any given time. Its fast, quick and to the point. Its also a great way to announce your blog additions. All you need to do is

Title of the  blog entry <address of the entry>;

That’s it. It will get picked up by your followers and retweeted around.

Email marketing

Every time you blog, send out an email newsletter. It takes the same effort to write a newsletter as it takes to write a blog post. So why not combine the two? An email newsletter is a great way to get mind share with your readers. Its active and its genuine. If someone doesn’t like what you are writing they can choose to unsubscribe. Opening, clicking and forwarding your emails are genuine actions of interest and show real involvement. Its actual hard data that you can use to tailor your marketing.

As you have probably understood by now, online marketing is more about frequency and consistency than any great creativity. Sure, you need to be creative enough to create good content for your site. But more than that your consistency is what enables people to remember you and call you when they need what you are selling.