4 Key Elements Of A Successful Internet Marketing Plan
Posted by Eric Baum on Sat, Jan 28, 2012
Coming up with an internet marketing plan for your small business can seem like a daunting task. There are so many options to choose from and a million fast talking sales people trying to sell you SEO, PPC, online yellow pages, industry directory ads, etc. So which of these if effective? The answer is they all could be somewhat effective if used correctly depending on your business, industry and market.
However, to create a truly effective internet marketing plan for your business, which will continue to pay dividends over time, you need to employ a few "Inbound Marketing" principles. So what is Inbound Marketing and how does it apply to your online marketing strategy? Inbound Marketing is just a term that is used to describe a organic approach to marketing your business online.
Internet Marketing Plan Elements:
- Create: create remarkable content
- Optimize: optimize this content for search engines (SEO)
- Promote: promote your content through Social Media
- Analyze: analyze your data to see what is working and what's not
Create Remarkable Content
The first step to a successful internet marketing plan is creating content on your website that people want to read. This can be in the form of new website pages, blog post, video, podcast, eBook, Webinar, etc. The easiest way for most small businesses to get started is to set up a blog and start writing. The information should be useful to your readers and it must capture their attention. If your content is informative and it engages the reader, they will be more likely to share your content with their peers and friends through social media channels.
Optimize: Search Engine Optimization
Once you have created your new blog post, or other form of content, you must optimize it for search engines. What does this mean? Very simple, each blog post should be created around one keyword phrase that you would like to rank higher in the search engines for. You should include this keyword in your blog title, heading tags, meta description and throughout the blog text itself. Remember, every piece of content you produce is another opportunity to rank for a new keyword phrase.
Promote: Use Social Media To Share Your Content
Social media has been integrated into everything we do online these days. Make sure you include ways for people to share you content on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. This means you need to have social media sharing buttons on your blog, website and eBooks. If your content is remarkable, then readers will gladly share your article with people in their network. So make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
In addition you should be actively promoting your content through your social media accounts. Post your new blog article on these social media platforms, for some platforms like Twitter (which has the attention span of a gnat) you should send out a link a few times that day. Be sure you are not spamming though, social media platforms are there to connect and share with others, don't be a shameless self promoter.
Analyze: Wash, Rinse, Repeat
Once thing that gives internet marketing a leg up on traditional advertising channels like TV, radio and magazines (other than these channels are less effective and more expensive) is the ability to track and analyze the metrics. Using good analytics tools such as Google Analytics or HubSpot, you can see who your visitors are, where they are coming from, what they have done on your website or blog, and what content they prefer. This allows you to see what things on your website are working and what things aren't. The simple rule here is: do more of the things that are working well and cut out the things that don't work. An example of this is reviewing your blog analytics to see which blog topics resonate well with your readers (as determined by page views and the number of times the article was shared on social media sites). Then write more blog posts on this topic from a different angle.
Creating a successful internet marketing plan takes strategic planning and hard work. But if done correctly it will continue to pay dividends far into the future. You may find that some of your most visited pages on your website are blog articles that you have written 6 months or even years ago. For more help with creating an internet marketing plan for your business download our Free Inbound Marketing Plan.
