So you’ve finally decided to join the Internet Marketing revolution and fork out for your very own website to promote your business online to millions of potential customers. Online surfers and potential clients will flock to to your site and throw money at you. The phone will start hopping and you’ll be able to retire early, right!? Well it is possible, anything is possible on the internet but unless you have a very niche product with a very large potential market and a bit of lucky viral promotion, its highly unlikely. More likely is the fact that your website will be lost in a tidal wave of sites a lot of which will be selling exactly what you’re selling and for longer, perhaps with an established and loyal customer base already.

So how do you break into this new marketing environment and avoid having your site drop like a stone through the search results? Presuming you don’t have limitless funds to throw at Online advertising with the likes of Google AdWords, etc.. then you might try some or all of the following:

SEO

You must make sure your site has the best possible chance of doing well in web searches in the first place. That means getting your web designer to build it properly from the ground up paying attention to things like Domain Name, Semantics, Web Safe URL’s, Keywords, Heading Tags, Image Descriptions, etc.. It wont guarantee good search engine placement but it will give you a good foundation to work on.

Updating

One of the best things you can do these days is keep your site regularly updated with fresh new content either by the regular addition of relevant news, pages or a Blog. Blogging is probably best as its very popular these days and you can write relevant articles that others can comment on which creates dialog and interaction with your customers, never a bad thing.

Communication

Too many website owners stick a website up complete with contact details, enquiry forms and email addresses only to then ignore any communication sent through these channels. I’ve so often sent a company an email enquiry through their site only to be ignored or have to wait weeks for a reply. NB – every email not replied to not only looses you that customer but anybody else that customer might talk to about you. Remember, the whole purpose of a site at least is to generate sales leads and if you ignore these leads then why bother having a site?

Promotion & Networking

Websites need to be promoted and luckily there are many excellent free ways of doing that these days. The general idea is to talk about or mention your website and business in as many different places online as possible including, Online Press releases, Online Social Networking sites, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc.. Your goal is to build up a network of people that know what you do and how well you do it so they or their friends can become your clients some day. You should also get involved in online discussions on relevant forums and other people’s blogs and network with others in your industry as often as possible.

Don’t forget to market your new site offline as well as on by putting your web address on your Business cards, Flyers, Van, etc..

All of this takes time and effort but if you like your job and care about succeeding then it should come naturally. Good luck.