Articles - although pay per click (PPC) and for pay directories (like Yellow Pages) help bring in traffic, once I stop paying the fees, these services stop. So, for effective, long term Internet marketing awareness, I have found that the combination of SEO (search engine optimization) and article marketing have given me the best ROI. If you can’t or don’t have the time to write articles for your own business, hire someone to do it for you. Believe me, the investment will pay off in the long run. But you must understand, it’s not a one shot deal, or even a short term deal. Writing is constant. You don’t write 5 articles and then call it quits. It takes many articles, continuously being written. After all, even print journalists spend years writing before they’re recognized.

Write your articles and submit them to free article submission sites (there are hundreds),

Social Media - your name, your company needs a following. Every brand does. So, create that following by joining and participating in social media programs. I’m talking about Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Knolstuff, etc. Submit your articles to these places, engage in conversations with others, find others in your niche or in your target audience. The #1 rule I can tell you about social media programs is do not become a salesman. Do not join these programs with the intention of just selling. You won’t gain ground. The point of these programs is to showcase your expertise. Let others know who and what you are and why your product/service is valuable for them.

You know, these social media programs are SO much like business networking groups. I remember years ago when I attended these types of groups at chamber of commerce meetings, BNI, women’s business groups, etc. it was easy to notice that the business folks who came to the meetings and immediately began selling, pitching their business, they never lasted long. Why? Because they didn’t sell. Why didn’t they sell? Because they didn’t give anyone a chance to learn who they were. They didn’t give others the opportunity to build trust in them. My goal at these meetings was to educate. Not many people know about SEO and the ones who do, know very little or have been given falsehoods about it. So, my goal was to educate everyone I met about what I did. If they so chose to purchase my services, great. If not, that was great also. I never went to a meeting with the intention of coming out with a sale. And you know what? It’s been 4-5 years since I’ve gone to any of these meetings (yes, business is doing well) but I still get calls and emails from people I met all those years ago looking for SEO work.

The online social media programs are the same, except you can do it in your pajamas. The purpose and intent of the social media programs is for you to showcase yourself, your business. Who are you? What do you do? Why do you do it better than others? How can you help? etc.

SEO - I just can’t say enough about the importance of getting your website optimized for the search engines. And no, I don’t mean just tweaking the meta tags. I mean really optimized. Some websites have to be taken apart, literally and rebuilt so that their structure is easy for the engines to read. Keyword research needs to be conducted, page optimization needs to be implemented. That means placing those important keyword phrases in all the right places. Making sure that the pages link to each other the way they’re supposed to, ensuring the site has a 301 re-direct, there’s a robots.txt file, there’s a sitemap.xml, and so much more!

As the website owner you don’t have to know all the details of SEO (you bring the car to the mechanic because he’s the expert, not you). BUT, you do need to know enough to know if you’re getting your money’s worth. So make sure that your SEO firm keeps up with the latest trends, that they’re investing their time in your business (and not just theirs) and always, always look at your ROI. The average ROI is 1% - 3%. If you fall within that range your site is doing well. If you are above that range, your SEO firm deserves a bonus. If you fall below that range, something needs to be changed. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what to change.

So, I do hope these free Internet marketing strategies will help your website gain ground in the extremely competitive world of the Internet. The returns are absolutely worth the effort so don’t be shy, plunge in!

Tags: advertising, internet marketing strategies, pay per click, ppc, promotion, seo