So let’s take a few minutes to do a quick review of some of the main online marketing strategies that you can use to promote your site. The fact is that you need to be doing multiple things if you’re really going to see some long term success.
A Tip About Online Marketing Strategies
Just a little note before we talk about the different strategies: I don’t want you to get overwhelmed with all there is to do. You need to look at your own business model and see how you could take advantage of testing these different strategies. Test, tweak, find what works, and then optimize what works!
Search Engine Optimization
This is probably the one marketing strategy that everyone wants to learn how to do, and honestly should learn how to do. And for good reason! How could you pass up tons of free traffic if you can get ranked for the right keywords? It can really be a great thing!
You really need to be aware that it takes a lot of time and effort before you’ll see any really good results with SEO. If you stick with it you’ll see results most likely within a few short months.
Social Media
Social media marketing and optimization is one of the newer online marketing strategies, but it can be a great way to get exposure, bring in additional traffic, and links. Use sites like Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, and others to increase your traffic and exposure.
Paid Traffic – PPC
I know that the big concern on this on is spending too much. Don’t worry, you have to set up budgets these days to make sure you don’t over spend. PPC can be a great way to generate traffic if you know what you’re doing.
You’ll want to learn how to do and use every now and then. This is for a couple of reasons: you can get traffic faster with PPC than you can with SEO; you can do really good testing with PPC; you can target more phrases with PPC than you can with SEO. Learn how to do it, then take use it to your advantage!
JV Partnerships
Here’s an example of a joint venture idea: Let’s say you have a site that sells health products. Well, what if you went and found a popular health newsletter and made them an offer where you would give them a promo code that they can give to their readers. If any of their readers use that code on your site you’ll split the profit with them. This way you both benefit from the agreement!
Email Campaigns
You’ve all heard by this time I’m sure of the value of building a list. Have a newsletter that you send out every week or two, but make sure that you’re giving out valuable content and not just advertisements. This is a great way to keep in touch with current and potential customers. It gives you the chance to have multiple touches with these people.
Shopping Networks/Sites
There are a lot of sites out there that shoppers are already using to find good deals. These include Shopzilla.com, Shopping.com, Shop.com, Amazon.com, Google Base, and others. A lot of these sites run a PPC-like program, but some are even free like Google Base. If you have a retail or dropshipping business this is on strategy you should definitely be using.
Final Thoughts About Different Online Marketing Strategies
This article is in no way intended to be an all-inclusive list of all the strategies you can use, but this should get you started. Think about your site and model, and think about which of these approaches could work for you.
My hope is that after reading this article you understand that there is more to do than just SEO. Use some of these other online marketing strategies. As mentioned before do some testing to see what works for you. Then make the most of it!