Three core Internet marketing strategies for small business…

Any small business that now thinks that the Internet is a passing fad is blind to the facts. There is still much confusion among small business owners about how to utilize the web to the marketing of their own small business. Marketing your small business on the Internet does not need to be expensive, nor does it need to be complicated.

And, just like in the real world, there are many small business marketing options available to you.

For small businesses Internet marketing can be a surprisingly low-cost way of promoting your local small business. This promotion can be targeted locally, regionally or across the globe.

So, let’s hear these strategies I hear you say. And, how does one apply them?

For the average small business there are only THREE approaches to Internet marketing that one needs to consider, being…

1. Paid search marketing (Pay per click marketing, and its numerous variations), and… 2. In-context link marketing (being commercial links within content on a specific topic), and… 3. Natural search marketing (SEO, content marketing, blogs and its numerous variations).

And, what are the benefits/ costs (pros and cons) of these approaches?

1. PAY PER CLICK SEARCH MARKETING:

The effectiveness of your paid search marketing campaign is directly related to the keyterms you chose to use. The other key factor here is your landing page for you PPC advertisement. In essence, Paid search marketing works a little like the marketing you (as a bricks and mortar business owner) already know and use in the real world. The main difference here is that you pay per click.

The benefits to you (the pros). Well, when correctly targeted, you’ll reach prospects, fast.

The CONS: A) This is a specialist skill. If you don’t know what you’re doing you can lose a lot of money, fast! B) Hiring a PPC specialist can be expensive. C) You have to continue to run your PPC ads. D) Competition for commercial keyterms is fierce. This continually drives their cost up, and you only get to play as long as you continue to pay.

2. IN-CONTEXT LINK MARKETING:

By utilizing other people’s keyword focused and existing content you’re able to promote your local business (say you’re an accountant) via other people’s focused content. This is a commercial pay per click arrangement between the content creator, yourself (the advertiser) and the in-context web system that matches the two parties in the arrangement.

The PROS: This is a better approach for small businesses marketing on the Internet, because these embedded hyperlinks are not perceived by the reader as an advertisement. This reduces the visitors resistance to clicking through on these in context hyperlinks (ads) as the links are viewed by the reader as links to more information.

The CONS: A) Competition for commercial keyterms is fierce. This continually drives your costs up. And, you only get to play as long as you continue to pay. B) You have limited control over where these hyperlinks are placed, because it’s the In-Context advertising system that places these links in the participating publisher’s content for you. C) To get best results here one needs to utilize specific landing pages for the clickthroughs from your different ads. This is called the search path, and again it’s a specialist skill that’s needed to set up good search path landing pages.

3. NATURAL SEARCH MARKETING:

When a small business interfaces with the fundamental way people use the Internet THEY win. This approach is called natural search (or search marketing). This approach can be especially powerful for small businesses wanting to market themselves locally, regionally (or even across the world). Search marketing strategies require a different approach to the other methods already discussed.

Note: SEO is a term used to describe the optimization of web pages. Search marketing is different (though related). Search marketing integrates SEO and information search paths to better interface with the web user searching for specific information.

The PROS: With natural search marketing, if your business is the creator of the keyword-focused content, you have a distinct marketing advantage on the web. Long term, these advantages will far out weight both the PPC and In-context marketing strategies, because you are building a web business or traffic portal which belongs to you. Your results with natural search marketing are in direct relationship to your own efforts. And, here’s an interesting twist, small businesses wanting to primarily market themselves locally or regionally have a distinct advantage using this natural search marketing methodology.

The CONS: A) Search marketing strategies require more effort than the potential throwing money at the wall techniques of the other strategies. B) It can be a slower approach than the other methods discussed. However it has been proven time and again that search marketing is an ideal and cost effective method for small businesses to use on the net.

And so, to summarize… There is great divide between those business who understand the web and how to market on it and those who don’t. However, your opportunity to market your own small business on the web is now, while this confusion still exists in the marketplace.

http://www.info-online-hq.com/internet-marketing/three-core
-internet-marketing-strategies-for-small-business/