Online Marketing Tips
Your website up should not be the only way you advertise online. Competition online is tough in today's market. You want to find ways to locate you target audience and pull them onto your website. This will build up traffic and as your site gains traffic it will look more appealing to search engines.
Claim your business with Yelp
If you have a physical storefront check to see if Yelp has already listed your business. If you search Yelp and cannotn find your business look for the "Add A Business" button and add your business.
If your business is already listed, or after you have added your business to Yelp, check for accuracy and add photos of your business.
Check back and respond to reviewers for your store.
Forum / Social Media Participation
Find social media which fits your niche and participate in the discussions. Be helpful, offer tips and respond to others. Take care not not to spam. Have your interactions to be thoughtful and meaningful. Do not just advertise your website or you may be band.
This participation can also help you find what your target audience is looking for and what type of keywords they use in their discussions.
Example:
Say you have a website that deals with gardening. You could visit the site www.ohlymybloom.com/forum and answer questions. Have a link to your site as part of your signature.
Google AdWords
This one will cost a little money, but how much is up to you. To assist in getting traffic at the opening of your store you may decide to sign up with Google AdWords. You choose your ad campaign budget and Google keeps your results within the set budget. Due to the ebb and flow of the Internet some days may be more than you average daily budget, while other days come in less.
Example:
Let's say you want to run your ad campaign through the month of January and you do not want to spend more than $5 a day. From January 1 to January 31, at $5 a day it is a total of $155 for the ad campaign.
Google now knows the budget and length for this ad campaign. Since the Internet is fluid and some days you will get higher results than other days, there may be some days that go into what is called an overdelivery. Maybe Google used up $7 of the budget instead of $5.
Google will not exceed the $155 total budget set for the month and with complicated algorithms will figure out how to balance the remainder of the month. This overdelivery will make up for the slower days when there are not many click-throughs, but you do not lose out on the higher traffic due to a rigid budget.
Google AdWords are the links you see at the top of the Google Search Engine Results Page.
