How do you even begin to answer this question, right?
Well, the easiest and most important answer, derived from the title of this post, is a simple yes or no. Do you market your website at all?
If the answer is “no”, you need to re-evaluate the expectations of your website and read this entire article and explore our website in much greater detail.
If the answer is “yes”, you are most definitely in a better position than those who answered “no” and should still read this entire article and explore our website to ensure you’re doing it right.
If your answer was “no”, please consider the following statement as a professional tip, and not a slap on the hand. If you have a website, but don’t market it, how do you expect people to find it? Marketing a website is just like marketing a brick and mortar business. You can’t just slap a sign on a building and expect business to spontaneously erupt. You have to cultivate it over a period of time and continually fine tune your marketing efforts until your business grows into a brand that people recognize and trust.
This same concept goes for your website, and I assure you, this is one million times more important than offline marketing. Why?
- There are billions of web pages on the internet compared to your local/national/international competition. You’re competing with them all for Search Engine Rankings.
- The internet is the go-to resource for almost all products and services purchased in today’s economy.
- The opportunity to grow your business using the internet is far greater than growing your business the traditional way. There are billions of web searches everyday and I guarantee a shocking amount of those searches are related to your area of expertise.
If you’re doing no marketing at all, or don’t have a website to market, we encourage you to assess the value of owning, and/or marketing a website. Contact us and we’ll be happy to get you started. It’s easier than you think.
If you answered yes, you should write down the marketing adventures you have taken to date, and make sure the following are on the list. Remember, this list only pertains to online marketing.
- SEO | Has your site been optimized for the SERP’s? (Search engine results page)
- PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
- Social Media Outreach
Please also remember that Google is not the only search engine out there. You may answer, yes, we do PPC, but do you only do Google Adwords? Did you know that Yahoo and Bing also offer PPC advertising? Even more important, the most popular social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter also offer PPC at great prices. The lesson there; don’t limit yourself, explore all options.
The true secret to marketing your website is not actually a secret at all. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites online totally dedicated to explaining the different aspects of Internet Marketing. If you do a search in your favorite search engine for “internet marketing techniques“, you’ll be over whelmed at the options available to you. You’ll probably be disappointed to learn that you will need some assistance with a lot of these techniques but you’ll also find quite a bit that you’ll be able to do on your own.
The most important thing is that you start marketing your website immediately.
Try this:
- Visit your favorite Search Engine
- Using keywords, search for things that are relevant to your business (don’t search your business name, although, there is a lesson to be learned there too!)
- Study the search engine results.
Did you find any companies that you are in direct competition with?
Did you find your company? If so, on what page of the SERP’s did you show up?
This simple test will prove, above and beyond any research you do, that it’s time to market your business online as soon as possible. If the competition is ranking higher than you, chances are, they’ve already dived into the world of Internet Marketing and you have a lot of catching up to do.
