Whether or not you believe it, there is not some hidden, illusive secret to online marketing. Once you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals, the rest will almost fall into place. The trick is to get started. This process can be quite intimidating if you have no prior experience in the marketing field. However, there is no reason to fear – when you are armed with the essentials you can be better prepared than most college graduates who have degrees in PR.
Five essential things you need to understand about marketing your business online are found here.
There are Numerous Valuable Tools that Cost Absolutely Nothing
A number of resources that are available to assist you with online marketing are available at no cost to you. For example, it costs absolutely nothing to create accounts on social media – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. This will provide you with links back to your website and also allow you to communicate directly with your customers.
Creating and running your social media presences will provide you with a simple, yet highly effective, method of promoting your business online. Some other free (and pretty cool) tools that are available for you to use include:
- Hootsuite: Allows you to manage and schedule your social media updates, which includes monitoring the keyword usage.
- Google Alerts: This allows you to know who is talking about your company.
- Google Analytics: Allow you to see the number of people who are visiting your site and where they are coming from – all in real time.
You can Teach Yourself Almost Anything
This is the age of information. If you have any questions, you don’t have to guess and you don’t have to spend hours in the library to find the answer you are seeking. A simply Google search will reveal to you the answer you are looking for – and you never even have to leave your couch. Virtually any question you can ask has been answered online, all you have to do is find it.
No Answer? Ask Somebody!
You will never grow or benefit if you are shy and reserved, so you should not be afraid to ask questions when you are pursuing knowledge. You can ask questions a number of places, MediaBistro and Quora or LinkedIn and Twitter. See what others have to say, which can provide you with a huge amount of extremely valuable information.
Two Blogs a Week can Help You Accomplish Quite a Bit
If you are able to commit to writing two blogs per week, you will likely surprise yourself with how far you can get in a year. You should have the goal to write a blog for your site and one to place on a site that is related to your industry as a guest blogger. Be sure to focus on SEO for the post that will be placed on your website and then focus on making yourself appear to be an industry expert for the guest blog. Also, include your website’s link someplace in the guest post. In just a few months, you should see quite a significant increase in the amount of sales and traffic you see.
Believe it or Not – You Can Do It!
While larger PR companies have experience and connections, if you have persistence, drive and commitment, you can easily achieve those things on your own (and save quite a bit of money along the way).
While this may seem a bit overwhelming for anyone new to online marketing, the most difficult part is getting started. However, once you make that first move or write your first blog, you will find that it is not near as difficult as you imagined. Also, mistakes will happen – be sure to learn from these and no move will be a bad move.
Now it's your turn, what tips or questions do you have? Post them below.
Tabitha Jean Naylor, Clearwater FL
Tabitha Jean Naylor, Clearwater FL is the Founder of Successful Startup 101, a digital magazine that provides answers to today's most pertinent questions facing startup founders, and the Owner of TabithaNaylor.com, a marketing firm that delivers 'big agency' quality at rates that are affordable for startups and small businesses.
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Great tips Tabitha. I used Google Analytics but never really used Google Alerts. Hootesuite I need t start up again. Thx for sharing this post!
I’ve been using google alerts for awhile now.. it’s a super easy way to keep an eye out of keywords
Yes, great tips. I use all of these tools and have been able to get my Alexa rating under 25K at its lowest last summer.
congrats.. keep it up.. the main stat to watch are unique visitors and leads.. and of course sales.
Thank you for sharing these tips Tabitha!
These are awesome tools.
Thanks for sharing Tabitha. I am new as new can be at blogging and anything internet, so it is very overwhelming. But having read a few of your posts, I have genuinely and surprisingly awakened my purpose for having this interest and gravitation towards blogging and the internet. I have a story to tell and that story is ME. I know I can and will be of service to the wondering souls seeking answers. I’m ecstatic about writing my first blog without fear. Thanks you.
Great tips. These will be very useful for me.
Thanks for sharing.
I think I tried to learn too much too fast. I feel so far behind in tech saviness and way out of my comfort zone with videos and live broadcasting. Using social media for business is much more intense than what I ever did and blogging 7 days a week on top of all that learning — serious burnout! I have forced myself to slow down and try to learn one thing at a time while I try to blog as often as possible. This is a great article. You laid out the 5 things that are most important to know and I’ll keep working at it! Thanks for sharing this information Tabitha.
Awesome tips! Thanks for sharing. I learned a few new tricks I hadn’t thought of before!
I use google analytics often to see how many people are coming over to my blog. I have seen other people use Hootsuite to post on Facebook but I thought you had to pay for it. My goal is to get 1 blog post per day out, then send it to my list to bring them value. Thanks for sharing these tips as they will help a person whom is looking to run a small business with a blog.
When I first came online being a baby boomer I was so overwhelmed. I soon learned to make Google and YouTube my best friends to learn things. As you say there is an answer for eveything. It can be a scary place when we start but the main thing is not to try to do too much at once. A great post Tabitha.
So many tools, so little time. It is definitely overwhelming, but easy to read posts like this that keep things simple keep me focused and committed. Thank you for sharing!
Tabitha, this is a great blog that is full of valuable content on… 5 Things New Business Owners Must Know About Online Marketing. I have been following your post and they are broken down so well so that anyone can understand and comprehend and receive your message with ease..Please keep them coming.
Great tips Tabitha, thank you.