How to make a success of Internet Marketing

What’s the difference between a successful internet marketer and an also ran? We’ve all seen the articles; ‘Make a million dollars on the internet in ten easy steps’. You know the ones. There’s no doubt that have been some overnight success and some do strike gold with a one-off idea, but in the main, making money online means a lot of perseverance and bucket loads of determination.

An internet business model is very different from a conventional one. An on-line store, for example, has the potential to reach millions of potential customers all over the globe, but, equally, an online store also has millions of potential competing sites as well.

Creating an internet business is the easy part. It’s quite easy to create a website or blog and that part can often be done for free or very little cost, but the hard part is attracting visitors to the site and then getting those visitors to buy something.

You can read up on search engine optimisation techniques and you can learn all about effective website design, but the real difference between a successful and an unsuccessful on-line business is in how the marketer approaches the task at hand and the mind-set that they adopt.

There is no secret way to earn instant riches, apart perhaps from winning the lottery and we know how good the odds are there, to build an internet presence takes time. Search engines need to find and index you, links need to be built and content needs to be written. However, don’t be put off. Simply having a website in existence begins this process so don’t waste time, get started and start selling. Many sites have been created before and are still sitting there unfinished, waiting for some mythical number of daily visitors to occur before they even attempt to sell something. Even with just a handful of visitors there may be that first customer.

There is little on a website, other than, perhaps a brand name, that distinguishes a small business from a massive, worldwide corporation so talking-up the business proposition is easy. It can be discouraging when starting out to see low initial visitor numbers, but remember, those visitors have no idea how many other people have visited the site or how big or small the business is so talk big and talk with confidence.

Search engine optimisation may get you on the list, but, a search term that displays your site is still also going to display those of your competitors so differentiating a site from the rest is a vital part of internet marketing. Copying what everyone else has done just makes the site a ‘me-too’. An interesting, different website yet one that is still easy to use and to navigate around will keep the attention of the visitor for far longer.

Remember that the visitors to the site who spend money are human beings not search engines. Keywords should be borne in mind when writing content, but not the exclusion of common sense. If the text is so keyword stuffed that it becomes boring or worse, unreadable, then visitors will just skip to the next site on along on the list they got from Google.

The very thought of all those strangers viewing the site and reading the text can be a scary one. So much so that some people spend so much time perfecting their site they never actually get it launched. Certainly a site does need to have quality, human readable content and be well presented and easy to navigate around but perfection can come later. Remember, a web site can always be edited later if there are a few mistakes there.

Most internet users are looking to be entertained and informed and not just sold to, if this were not the case then most corporate websites would just be a short advert and a ‘buy now’ button. Content not only attracts visitors in the first place, but it also keeps their interest long enough for them to read the sales message. Writing, though, on a topic that holds no interest for you personally can be difficult and your lack of interest may show through in your content so it is always advisable to sell products that are passionate about yourself or to employ the services of a professional content writer.

It’s an old and overused saying, but, if you set out to lose, you probably will. Start from the basis that are going to win and that you have the best offering in the world and this will shine through in your sales pitch. If somebody else selling the same product has a better site, don’t be downhearted. Just take the ideas and improve on them in your own style to put yourself back to the top.

Don’t forget to tell your prospective customer what your product or service will do for them. It could be the best product the world has ever seen, but if they don’t know how it will save them money, improve their lives, make them happy or bring them fame and fortune they will never buy it. The worst thing that you can leave the prospect thinking is ‘Yeah, great product, but so what?’

Make the time to keep one eye on what others are doing. Web sites come and go quickly and you don’t want yours to be left trailing behind. Don’t be complacent; it could be today that someone steals your spot on the first page of Google or makes a special offer that blows your offering out of the water.

Despite the claim of some advertisements and articles, success rarely happens overnight. Persistence and patience pay and there is something else that could be done to improve the traffic to your site. You could be adding to or improving the content, you could be posting on forums or social media sites or you could be engaging better with your audience. The more you do. The more people will find your site.

There is no question at all that the internet opens up a whole new market for businesses both small and large, but it is a very different marketplace than some are used to. Volumes are high, but conversion rates can be low and visitors to a site may only spend a few seconds there. But if the site grabs the attention quickly and informs the visitor as well sells to them then, with persistence, the budding online entrepreneur can attract some of those millions of internet users and even convert some of them into sales.

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