I am giving a presentation at a CEO Space Utah business networking meeting today on how to leverage the internet for business success. Here are some tips I put together as a handout for attendees:
Internet Marketing 101
- Leverage your skills, talents and knowledge (Intellectual Property) by duplicating yourself. What do you know that would be of value to businesses and individuals? Put that into a sellable format such as a blog, e-book, online video, DVD, CD, podcast, etc.
- A Blog is a great way to market yourself, share your knowledge and put yourself out as an expert in your field. You can use it to sell your intellectual property and build a following.
- Create an e-mail list, newsletter, membership, etc. so that you have someone to market to.
- Content is King. Unique and valuable website content is important for SEO and traffic.
- Take your content to where the traffic is (Facebook, YouTube, Squidoo, Ezine Articles, etc.) and use your Blog/Website to bring it all together for those who find you on the social networks.
- Keywords and Key Phrases. What are people going to search for to find a company like yours? Optimize your content to those words/phrases. Use them throughout the content of your website, but don’t over-do-it. Be wise. Use the Google Keyword Tool for suggestions.
- Most Bloggers gain their traffic from 3 sources, inbound links (other sites linking to yours), search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.) and social media (Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Digg, etc.).
- Remember that your front page is the most important part of your website. It’s your WOW! That’s what people see first. Your call to action should be very clear and focused on the front page.
- Service Providers. If you offer a service (i.e. carpet cleaning, plumbing, auto mechanic, coaching, etc) and/or have a physical office/storefront be sure to list yourself on Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Yellowpages.com, Superpages.com and other business directories.
- Advertise. Google AdWords and other ad services are a profitable route for some businesses.
- My recommended Social Networks / Social Media sites: Facebook.com, Linkedin.com, MySpace.com, YouTube.com, Twitter.com, Digg.com, Squidoo.com.
- Other resources: dailyblogtips.com, weblifellc.com, poorrichards.net, inspiredstartup.com, seomoz.org, http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, google.com/sktool.
