Internet Marketing Tips

“Build it and they will come just,” doesn’t work for creating a successful online presence. How nicely your site is designed and how easy it is to navigate are important factors. But they aren’t worth a hill of beans if no one knows where to find you. That’s where Internet marketing comes into play. These tips will help get you on your way to launching an effective Internet marketing campaign.  SEO marketing remains a vital ingredient to successful marketing online.

Keyword Research

According to a webcast entitled “Advanced Keyword Research for Search Ads”, identifying, researching and zeroing in on the right keywords can make or break your search advertising campaign. To research keywords, search online to identify your competitors and determine what Internet marketing strategies they are employing (e.g., Pay per Click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), press releases, affiliate marketing, Adsense, etc.). Visit the sites of the top 10 to 20 and see what keywords they are using and write them down or put them in a spreadsheet.

Carefully read your competitors’ web pages to identify their strengths and weaknesses and narrow your list of keywords. Find out where your potential customers hang out (e.g., Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, etc.) and what their buying habits are. Read reviews, forum postings and customer testimonials. Finding out your potential customers’ habits will help you narrow your keyword list even more.

Well-Written Original Content

Nothing is more important to a successful Internet marketing campaign than well-written original content. So that you don’t dilute the keywords under which you want to be found, focus the message to 3 to 5 keywords. Focusing on 3 keywords is best.

Use your three keywords in your title tag, heading level tags, within bulleted text and as the anchor text of your links. The higher on the page your keywords are, the better the changes the search engines will pick them up. Then, once you’ve written your content, do a thorough keyword analysis.

Keyword Analysis

Keyword density is important because search engines use this information to categorize a site’s theme, and to determine which terms the site is relevant to, which is why thorough keyword analysis is so important to a successful Internet marketing campaign. Keyword density refers to the percentage of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words on a web page. It needs to be balanced because a keyword density that is too high will be flagged for “keyword spamming” and one that is too low will cause your site’s search engine ranking to be low. Most experts agree that optimum keyword density for targeting the majority of search engines is between 3% and 9%.

There are several free keyword analysis tools on the web like Live Keyword Analysis. Paste in the 3 keywords on which you’re focusing. Then, paste in your web page content in the paragraph box. Your keyword density results will automatically appear.

Search Engine Optimization

Once your site is designed and your content is written, you need to further optimize your site for the search engines before submitting it. Follow the best practices for Google, Yahoo and MSN because around 95% of Internet users will use these three search engines to find what they’re looking for.  According to Kelly Media Group, Jason Cardiff, “Internet advertising companies who practice, well-rounded, “white hat” SEO tactics are hard to find.”  Cardiff continued, “It is imperative to allign yourself with companies that are trying to trick the search engines, because it usually come back to bite you.” At this point, Google places a lot of importance on the relevance of incoming links to your site—more so than Yahoo and MSN. But, that’s going to change in 2009, where they’ll be focusing more on what the site visitor does once they land on your site including how long they stay on your site, etc. Search engine marketing is critical for receiving organic search engine placement from the “big 3.”  But, all rely on clean code, easy site navigation and well-written original content.