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As an internet marketer I know that there is no shortage of work that could be done to your website. You could go blind looking at your computer monitor with all of the “best practices” that are suggested by internet marketing gurus.
Here are some good pointers if you find yourself like most small business owners — short on time and short on money.
Tip 1 - Streamline Your Platform
I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to be able to add content to your website on a regular basis. If you are like most small business owners, you don’t have any website design or coding experience and you don’t want any.
The good news is that there are website platforms available (for free!) that allow you to update your website regularly with only word processing as a pre-requisite skill. You don’t necessarily have to redesign your whole site to get this done. In most cases, you can “bolt on” a platform that will allow you to add fresh text, video and images with just a couple of clicks of a button.
Tip 2 - Go To Work On Your Content
As an internet marketer, I throw the word “content” around quite a bit. To define it, content is the substance of your website. It is the vehicles that you use to solve your customers problems on your website. It is a description of your services, it is a video testimonial or a price sheet that details the cost of your products or services.
In the internet marketing industry, we say “Content Is King.” This has never been more true. Google and the others are not interested in displaying a website that has poor content. They are interested in displaying the best of the best and you need to concentrate a good deal of your time on creating compelling and useful content for your target market.
Tip 3 - Hire An Expert To Train You On The Basics of Search Engine Optimization
If you have a site that you can update easily and you are creating great content, you can magnify the positive results you will get by practicing a few basic principles of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Hire someone that is familiar with these practices and ask them to do two things:
1. Ensure that your website is “crawlable.” In other words, ask the expert to ensure that your website is accessible to search engines like Google and Yahoo.
2. Ask them to train you on the basics of keyword research, title tags, heading tags and meta descriptions.
If you do nothing but the first three things your site will have some success.
Tip 4 – Go Outside The Walls Of Your Own Website
Just as with any other form of marketing, you need to go TO your target market. Don’t wait for them to come to you.
Find out where your target market spends their time online.
What blogs do they read? Comment on those blogs.
What forums do they read? Comment on those forums.
Find other places to distribute your content such as Ezine Articles (free) or PRWeb (paid). You Tube, flickr, Facebook, Yahoo Answers, Twitter, and Linked In are also great places to get your message TO your target market.
Tip 5 - Make Sure Your Web Visitors Know What To Do
You may need to hire someone to do this one for you as well, but it will be the best money you’ve ever spent. Try this — navigate to your website and check to see if it is very clear what you want your website visitor to do.
In other words, do your website visitors know how to engage with your business on your website?
If not, you need to spend some time and possibly money to ensure that your website is able to “convert” traffic to customers.
If you follow these tips you will find that your website will gradually become more of a factor in driving business.
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