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How Proper Internet Marketing Can Turbo-Charge Your Business

If you own or operate a small to medium sized business, then chances are that you don’t have to be reminded about what kind of economy we are currently living in.  You probably already know as well as anyone all about the potential pitfalls and stumbling blocks that come from running your own business in today’s market and how frustrating it can be to fight for each and every sale.  The fact of the matter is that the same techniques for running a successful business ten, maybe even five, years ago, largely don’t apply in today’s competitive market.  Your business needs new tools and new methods in order to stay afloat.  This is where the concept of Internet marketing comes in to help increase website traffic and sales.

First things first, you are probably wondering how Internet marketing would affect your bottom line.  Well, it turns out that Internet marketing is actually very inexpensive when you compare it to alternative forms of marketing, even if you decide to operate strictly on the local level.  When you compare costs of various Internet marketing techniques to more traditional kinds of techniques, it can actually be surprising to see how low an on-line only initiative would cost compared to the alternative forms of marketing.  The thought of inexpensive advertising and product placement help make the whole idea very attractive for businesses of all sizes.

Another important factor to consider about Internet marketing is that it much more targeted and much more precise as far as who the actual audience is.  As an example, consider an ad placed in a local newspaper or periodical.  When you place an ad in a local newspaper, you could actually be wasting a lot of precious marketing power on people who are not your targeted audience and who would never be interested in the goods and services your business has to offer.  When setting up an Internet marketing campaign, the targeted customer base is a huge factor during the planning and implementation stages.  Internet marketing can direct and focus your advertising efforts at a specific potential market and at a specific group (typically a group or market that you have deemed to have interest in what you and your website have to offer) as to not waste a single dime advertising to people who would have no interest and give no responses to your advertising efforts.  Attracting targeted website traffic is more effective than attracting general traffic.

When deciding on an advertising medium, it is important to consider how many people your advertising efforts could potentially reach.  Let’s go back to the newspaper analogy once again.  If you were to host an ad in the local newspaper, your advertising efforts would most likely reach several thousand people (depending on the size of your local area and the size of the subscription base).  However, Internet marketing is continually growing and expanding and is being seen by an ever increasing number of people around the world.  Just a few short years ago, Internet marketing may not have been for everyone and in some cases may not have made sense, but in this day and age when such a vast amount of business comes from sources found on-line, it is getting to the point where it is almost required that you and your business have some form of on-line advertising and marketing initiative.  There are so many benefits and advantages to an effective on-line marketing push that it’s something that you just can’t afford to neglect.  It can be an unequaled tool for you to bring in lots of new premium traffic to your website, which often turns into lots of new customers.  There are many models and plans that encompass many different Internet marketing techniques, so be sure to find out which strategy would best suite you and your company and get started with it as soon as possible.

Now then, as you begin your own Internet marketing push to drive more quality traffic to your website, there are a few things that you should try to avoid in order to operate a successful and effective on-line advertising campaign.  First of all, you need to be aware that your website is what represents your entire company on-line.  It represents you, your business as a whole, and your products or services that you offer.  Due to this, it is very important that you give a lot of attention to how your website looks, how it is presented, and what kinds of content that it contains.  Your website’s content itself is extremely important because each visitor and potential customer is looking for informative content that is easy to read and is inviting.  If a visitor happens to visit your website and they are greeted with an unattractive page that kind of looks thrown together and very unrefined, then chances are they are going to equate the quality of your website to the quality of your business.

Your website not only needs to look like nice and be easy to read through and follow, but, in addition to that, it also needs to be fully functional and work just as a new customer would expect.  This means that all links, buttons, forms, images, etc., on your website need to look good and be fully functional.  If you aren’t sure how to go about doing all of this, you may want to hire the help of a professional website designer.  A professional website designer can help you create a nice, basic, fully functional website for a relatively inexpensive price.  Remember, a high quality website usually equates to high quality traffic.

Another often overlooked pitfall of Internet marketing is recognizing the importance of having headlines that read well, are to the point, and that draw the reader in.  They should be catchy and unique in order to catch visitors’ attentions and should be something that people will want to respond to.  By striving for unique and interesting headlines, and by following the other tips and tricks mentioned here, you can create a successful and effective Internet marketing initiative that can drive many new customers and targeted traffic right to your door.

Easy Ways to Increase Your Alexa Ranking

Many online vendors seek to increase their free website traffic in order to increase their Alexa rating.  This has proven to be an effective way to find out how websites perform in their category, and is directly related to the amount of traffic they receive.  One effective use of the Alexa ranking is to input your website URL along with those of your competitors, and compare the rankings.  Just like golf, the lowest score wins.  If you are a commodity seller, and your competitors are a large group, or otherwise not easy to identify, the Alexa ranking can identify your type of business for you, and rate it against those it assigns to your category.  Even without competitor comparisons, the Alexa ranking can be analyzed over time to monitor the quality of your website traffic against improvements you may be making in your website design, or with the use of SEO optimization.

One important reason to follow and optimize Alexa ratings is to show an established and healthy site to advertisers.  Many advertisers rely on Alexa ratings in order to qualify the targets for their ad placement.  The power of Alexa is that it is accepted as very effective at comparing apples and oranges, so to speak.  For instance, how would you compare any two online businesses to decide where your ad was best placed?  Would you simply compare traffic and the one with the higher number wins?  This is a common comparison method, but suffers in the quality factors of the visitors.  For instance, in the first case, the visitors could consist of everyone who mistyped the URL of a common site, and have no predilection for purchasing anything from the target site.  In fact, they may visit the site irritated at the misdirection.  The second site could have targeted visitors, who have come because of clicking the links at a related site.  So the second site, although having lower traffic, contains the premium traffic.  They could have a much higher conversion rate to sales, which is the ultimate goal for the site after all.  Does that mean that the highest conversion rate makes the better site?  Not necessarily.  A lower conversion rate could still be the best rate in the class of that type of site.  So far, these are only three factors – traffic, amount of premium traffic, and business classification – and we still have not discussed search engine ranking, the use of SEO, or how to buy Alexa traffic.  This is the power of Alexa rankings is that all of these factors are taken into account and weighed into a final ranking that can be used to compare any two websites.

Another way to get started is to contact a provider for free website traffic, and see how they guarantee their performance.  Many specifically advertise that they will improve your Alexa rating, and after some months of service, you can confirm that this really happens.  At the same time, you can monitor your traffic, conversion rate, and most importantly sales to determine the improvements you have arranged.  Many free website traffic providers will refund your money if they do not help you achieve your Alexa rating goals.  By monitoring Alexa, you can effectively track your website performance improvement.

What You Really Need To Know About Web Design

Everyone seems to be an expert on web design, but the key is to know what you need so you can figure out what you want.  For instance, if your site is purely informational, such as a site promoting free marketing tips,  it will need a different design than if you are selling a product and need eCommerce tools such as a shopping cart.  If you create or have someone create a website for you, you want it to be effective and meet your needs.  Small businesses in particular require web design that helps their businesses grow and increases sales.
Give Your Website a KISS
If you have ever heard the acronym Keep It Simple, Stupid, or KISS, then you already know the first and most basic concept of web design.  You want to keep things as simple as possible.  If a visitor comes to your site, they want to be able to immediately and intuitively follow the content and know exactly what your site is about.  If you have too many add-ons or content that goes on and on without ever seeming to stop, your website will not attract visitors that are willing to stay long enough to actually see the products or services you are offering and make a purchase.  Simplicity is very important, so make sure that your web developer uses the KISS system.
While the overall site needs to look simple it also needs to be optimized well.  The underlying code should make the site friendly to all kinds of devices such as mobile phones, ipads, notebooks and so on, as well as to individuals with special needs.  Having a web design company that understands how to make your site accessible is part of keeping things simple.  The upside to accessibility is the fact that making your site accessible to all kinds of users helps to optimize it for the search engines.
Keep to a Basic Color Scheme
Using lots of colors and textures on your website can chase visitors away.  KISS those extra colors goodbye and give your visitor’s eyes a rest.  If you have a branded logo that uses color, stick to the logo’s palette of colors throughout the site.  Don’t be tempted to use different colors for every page.  Believe it or not, part of your branding is the colors you use, so constant repetition of the colors is a way to help customers connect with your brand.  Your site will look more professional and appealing if you are using a limited number of colors.
Navigation Must be Easy
If a visitor can’t get where they want to go once they get to your site, they will simply leave.  If your site is static, there are usually fewer problems with navigation, however, if you have an interactive design with a number of pages, such as a page for each product or service as well as order pages and description pages, use of a site map is critical.  The site map will not only enhance the navigation but will also assist search engine optimization.  Placement of your navigation system should be normal, such as to the left of the main page or at the top of each page.  People get used to looking in one place for the information they want and expect that website designers will put things where they expect them to be.
Keep Image and Video Quality High
Nothing says low quality like a pixelated photo or video.  If you are going to use a photo or image on your site, it must have a high enough resolution to be clear, or there is not point adding it to the site.  Sites that use too many graphics and animations can actually give viewers a headache.  Tastefully used video and graphics can definitely enhance web pages.  It is also important that the page is optimized for devices that can’t read images or videos so that there is text describing the image or video for better accessibility.  Another thing to consider when using videos or images is the amount of time required for them to download.  As the internet gets faster, people are more impatient than ever a don’t like to wait around for a page to load.  Instead, they are more likely to click out of the page or go to another site.
Content
The content you are planning to use on your site is absolutely critical.  If your site looks great but doesn’t provide any information, visitors will not stay.  You must clearly define what your products or services are in your content.  Content writing must be of the highest quality if you want to attract more visitors.  Not only should it be informative and interesting, but proper grammar should be used and it should flow easily.
As content is created, it needs to be optimized for the keywords you are targeting to drive traffic to your site.  Web developers understand how to use such things as headers, meta tags, and anchor text as part of a search engine optimization campaign.  Well-written content should be at the heart of such a campaign.
Web Design Leads to Web Traffic
Your web design has a direct relation to your web traffic.  Your website must be of high quality if you want targeted visitors to come to your site.  One of the best ways to get targeted website traffic is to buy traffic.  There are companies that help companies by providing traffic that is organized by location and language spoken so that the people coming to your site are the demographic you are looking for.
If your website has been designed with this in mind, your web pages can serve as the full page ads that are used to drive traffic to your site.  You won’t have to also create banner advertisements or do PPC marketing because your website can be used for your marketing.  With the high volumes of traffic that can be reached, buying traffic this way can be very economical.  Designing your site with this in mind will help you increase traffic and increase your sales.