Though the year of 2018 is already half way in, there is still so much you can do and achieve with your online business. If you are interested in driving more leads in 2018 we prepared a very simple, yet super effective, internet marketing checklist that will help you grow your business. Reach success step by step.
Either you already have an established online presence or you are just starting out, this checklist will strengthen your business and/or put you on the right path when it comes to online promotion. Bare in mind, it is all in mastering the basics. No matter what everyone else says, for as long as your work ethic is strong and you know the gist of it, you are half way closer to expanding your business (or your client’s business) through the roof. Be prepared for the snowballing effect.
By following a short and powerful internet marketing checklist, you only need to add your creativity and you are very likely to succeed. By knowing and understanding the fundamentals, you can later dig even deeper and create a special checklist that will perfectly meet your business’s marketing requirements. Moreover, you can also very easily customize it to make it fit other niches, too. Notice: it all requires hard work, consistency, and patience.
This simple 6 steps guide will boost your online presence and attract new visitors and potential clients.
1. Build an Effective Website
Not only an effective but better, too. After all, your website is the first thing the visitor sees. If it lacks in design and user experience, boy, your business’ future might not be the brightest. However, don’t be too intimidated because creating a stunning website in this modern age is way easier than you may think.
With help from premium WordPress themes, you can build and create a professional looking website without any coding skills. Update it with your business’ information, add some uniqueness to it and you are on the right track to amaze your old and new visitors. A visitor mainly judges the web page by its look and functionality. And this highly correlates with your business. Meaning, if your online presence is not of the highest quality, folks might start developing doubts in your business.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Your website might look the best in the world, following all the modern standards, however, is it really worth the effort if no one finds it? This calls for organic search traffic aka free traffic that comes from search engines.
Before you even begin building your website, you should be aware of search engine optimization (SEO). It will make your life a lot easier if you start optimizing it while you are building it. Title tags, meta descriptions and other SEO friendly texts that you should add to your website. Having a properly structured website is key to get your business ranked in search engines. The higher the ranking, the more free traffic your website will generate.
3. Converting Leads and User Experience
When a visitor lands on your website, does he or she convert? Do they click around the website and if not buying anything, do they at least contact you? Or does it happen that the moment they visit the page they click the back button? All this is what you have to be cautious about. Free tools like Google Analytics will help you better understand what your users are doing on your website and adjust the whole website accordingly.
A website that ensures great user experience will have visitors hooked for a longer time and make them convert into leads easier. If you are picking a business WordPress theme, make sure its UX (lighting fast load speed matters, too) is remarkable and the whole optimization process sophisticated.
4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
A combination of SEO and paid traffic is a very effective way when it comes to promoting your business online. Still, if you are on a budget, stick to search engine optimization first and then slowly grow into paid traffic (paid search or even social media marketing). Notice: SEO can take a significant amount of time before any results will show up (it can take months). It truly depends on how competitive the keyword you try to rank for in search engines (SE) is. Of course, the quality and how well your articles are structured is something you should consider mandatory.
For everyone who is interested in quicker results and does not mind spending a few bucks, SEM is the perfect solution for you.
FYI: the terms SEO and SEM should not be used interchangeably. They might be similar and work together, but they are not the same. Search engine optimization is just a part of the bigger brother, SEM.
5. Email Marketing Still Works
Needless to say, email marketing is still one of the primary methods to make business with. Not only is it very cost effective and extremely business oriented, it can also be very personal and less intruding. It helps you grow your relationship with your customers and make new prospects trust your company and become loyal clients.
Add a simple (pop-up) opt-in to your website to collect new emails and give buyers an option to subscribe to your newsletter during the check-out process. These are two of the free options that help you collect emails automatically.
6. Search and display advertising
For the more advanced ones, search and display pay-per-click advertising allows you to get new visitors to your website quickly. In theory, both options are very simple to use. However, it is advised to educate yourself beforehand and not go into it straight away. Even if you have a huge budget, PPC can empty your pockets extraordinarily fast and give you no real results. Moreover, instead of using both search and display advertising at the same time, master one first and only then grow into the second one. This will turn you into a search or display expert who will be driving high-quality traffic to your website.
This practical internet marketing checklist is built of staple steps that you should follow to create a successful online presence for your business.
Obviously, there is way more to each step as described above, still, let this be just as a guidance to better understand the internet marketing process.
As mentioned in the beginning of the article, conquer the basics first.
