What Is The Best Online Marketing Strategy?

By Author: autor
Total Articles: 4328
Comment this article

Traditional marketing methods are almost always outbound. In other words, prior to the commercialization of the Internet (World Wide Web), marketers sought buyers or prospects through a wide array of strategies, tactics and techniques. These include TV, Radio, Print Media, telemarketing, cold calling, direct mail, networking and more. Regardless of the inherent inefficiencies of outbound marketing, the best marketers learned their marketplace including potential buyers and existing competition. Knowing what your target market is looking for and how / what your competition is doing to reach the target market is always square one in the marketing arena.

Developing an online marketing strategy is no different in that it is critical that you gain an understanding of your target market and your competitors. By definition, online marketing strategy requires careful research and study of the online behaviors of your target customer. The major online portals that online purchasers and consumers use are of course Google, the other major search engines, shopping comparison sites, the social media and relevant blogs.

Search ...
... Engines still represent the primary focal point for most online marketing strategies because Google is clearly the most trusted first stop for online business and transactions. So any credible Internet Marketing Strategy must be focused on the prime location for online commerce; the first page of Google organic search results … this is where your potential customers are deciding who they want to purchase from; you need to be there!

All internet marketing including search engine marketing starts with the entry of a keyword (phrase). The search engines use complex algorithms to determine the relevance of every single web page indexed in their database and applies these logical formulas to provide the online searcher the most relevant web pages. So the online strategy must therefore be entirely focused on BEING FOUND on page 1 … the Main Street of online marketing.

How you achieve these high rankings can only be accomplished through the expert application of the sophisticated processes involved in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO involves intensive keyword research to determine the universe of keywords that require targeting to be found by relevant online searchers. This keyword research is the most fundamental piece of internet marketing. The results of keyword research surprises and sometimes shocks even experienced internet marketing professionals. Bottom line: You must know what your market is typing in the search box and know how many of these searches are being performed in a defined period of time. How else can any online marketing strategy know what road(s) to take?

Beyond keyword research, SEO then takes 2 main tracks; (1) Onsite optimization and (2) Offsite optimization. As the name indicates, onsite methods all involve on-page elements throughout the website that require specific elements of structure and formulation that make it fast and easy for the search engines to fully understand what each page of the website is all about. In addition, the relationship between the pages and how they link to each other is a key process of onsite SEO. Onsite optimization alone only sets the foundation for quality SEO results; in essence, it qualifies you to play the game of internet marketing. You rarely can achieve page 1 results with only onsite optimization, especially in 2009-10.

Offsite Optimization is the most important difference maker in the ultimate effectiveness of any SEO or online marketing strategy. Offsite Optimization is ultimately about Backlinks. Backlinks are links that originate outside of the targeted website linking directly to targeted website. You can buy backlinks. You can add your site to online directories … this are simple, but relatively ineffective backlinks. The highest quality backlinks are highly relevant and naturally occurring; these can only be achieved through the constant production of great CONTENT. Content includes many things. Textual content in the form of articles, press releases and blogposts is still the best type of content since the search engines love text more than they do images, audio or video. However, properly coded and implemented, non-textual content can be used to successfully communicate with the search engine spiders as well as us regular human beings.

Your new content must be added to your website to be indexed by Google. Articles must be added at least weekly; blogposts daily if possible. All content must also be syndicated to relevant sites; syndicated content are the seeds of highly relevant, naturally occurring Backlink generation. It is not an oversimplification to say that those with the best quality and the greatest quantity of these backlinks, WINS. This is the essence of SEO, high search engine rankings and, in actuality, all internet marketing.

Additional online marketing strategies may well include Social Media Optimization (SMO), Social Bookmarking, and participation in relevant forums or online conversations. Optimum7 writes extensively on all of these subjects in our Internet Marketing Articles Section of the Optimum7 Website and Blog. However, the point here is that keyword research and content targeted on the results of the keyword research form the basis for these specialties and subspecialties of internet marketing.

If you need help developing and fine tuning your online marketing strategy, contact us for a no obligation initial consultation.