Free online marketing tips
A lot of people ask me, “how do I generate leads for my business online?”…
Well firstly you could simply hire us to take on this task for you 🙂 But if you feel you have what it takes to do it yourself then that’s what these steps below are for, to give you some sort of idea and direction.
1. Get a website designed for your business
You might think this is funny and obvious, but it really isn’t funny how many times I have been asked to do online marketing for a company, and when the, “what is your websites address or URL?” question comes along then I usually get a response saying, “we don’t have a website designed”. A long pause awkward pause then ensues….
Firstly you HAVE to have a website designed for your business in order to take full advantage of the online market. It is your flier that you hand out to the online world. It is an essential part to getting some form of traction with online marketing. If your company does not have a website then please look into either getting someone to design your website or you can try do it yourself, if you think you have the time to learn the ropes.
There are thousands of videos on YouTube that will explain the steps it takes to create a simple website using something like WordPress.
The pros: You may save yourself a couple bucks, if you are tech savvy and have dipped your fingers into it before.
The cons: You may end up spending 100 hours on trying to figure it out, and therefor the time it has taken you to design your own website may have cost you more in time than it would have cost to get a professional to do it for you. You probably haven’t optimised it either so that it loads fast and is Search Engine Friendly, and never mind being user friendly…
2. Content is king!
Ok so now you have your website setup, it has a couple blotches of information here and there. You may want to consider starting a blog on your website where you can share valuable information and tips or interesting things about your industry. This content should also be optimised for your targeted keywords. Keywords are the words that people are actually searching for on Google, you can make use of keyword tools like AdWords in order to find out what people are searching for relating to your industry. PLEASE don’t just assume what people may be searching for, you HAVE to do the research as you may just be wasting your time going for a keyword that only gets 10 searches per month.
The pros: You will learn how to create content and that is a great skill to learn.
The cons: Time once again, if you have the time, use it. If not then we suggest you look at hiring a professional website designer
3. Create videos
I know this is hard and a lot of people are shy of the camera. But if done correctly it can drive huge traffic to your website. There are a ton of free video softwares you can make use of and play around with simply go to this website to see a range of free software.
4. Back-linking marketing
There is back-linking and then there is back-linking. One of them is no good black hat tactics and the other is sometimes a grey area. But in the online marketing world they can make a huge difference. Just be careful not to buy back-links from dodgy sources that are using black hat tactics. Link back to websites that offer similar services or that run blogs based on your niche markets. Ask them if they would allow back linking and what the process is to get them to back-link to your website. Please make sure that they make use of your targeted keywords and provide follow links. No follow links are pretty much a waste of time.
Get involved with forums that are industry specific, help people out and promote your services and website link. Create social media pages, list your business on free business directories. If you own other websites link them back to your website. There are many ways of going about this, and many peoples views on the subject will differ. It will take some work and effort though.
The pros: If done right and legally it can really offer your website a boost up the rankings.
The cons: If done incorrectly Google can penalize you and in extreme cases it can suspend your website.
5. Paid online marketing
Time to dig into your pockets a little, but don’t worry if this form of marketing is done correctly the ROI (return on investment) could be huge! You can run advert campaigns through Google AdWords where you pay per click (every time someone clicks on your advert). You create an advert, assign keyword phrases to it and voila you show up in search results on Google when people search for the keywords you have assigned to the campaign/advert. Once again take some time in setting these campaigns up. Some keyword phrases could prove to be very costly depending on your industry and the competition for those keywords. If you own a hardware store in Durban you may want to consider targeting area specific keywords instead of a keyword like “hardware store”, which could prove to be a costly adventure that returns no results. People in JHB searching for your store will more than likely leave your website once they find out you are not in their area. Have a look at the CPC (cost per click) for each keyword you target and try get the keywords that don’t cost too much but will still yield results for your business, a 100+ searches a month is usually a good target to try set for each keyword/phrase.
I hope this has not confused you more and has given you some insight to some of the options online marketing can offer your business. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions, or if you are interested in applying these marketing techniques for your website/business.
