Ways To Grow Your Business!!! Marketing Guide!!

Hello DPers.....I'll Post A New Way Here Everyday To Grow Your Business.

For Today:
Know Your Audience!
The key to successful marketing is very simple: know your audience. Before you spend any time or money on marketing, you need to know who your target market is. What types of customers are most likely to buy the types of products you are selling? For example, males or females? What age bracket? What income bracket? Are you trying to reach people with certain interests or skills? Once you know the profile of your typical customer, you need to find ways of reaching customers with that demographic profile. This may involve online advertising, offline advertising, or a combination of
the two. But don’t even begin to think about spending money on marketing until you’ve spent time thinking about who you are trying to reach. You may even need to do some market research to uncover this information. We can’t emphasize this step enough. Your marketing efforts won’t be successful unless you are spending your marketing dollars in the right places.

 

Very nice. I look forward to more ways of increasing business on a daily basis. You got my attention

 

2. Submitting Your Web Site to a Search Engine Database
When you launch a Web site, you want to make sure that it is included in the search engine databases
of both search engine Web sites and directory Web sites. There is a good possibility that the
spider programs that these Web sites use will find your Web site, index it, and add it to the search
engine’s database. However, it could take months for these spiders to discover your site, if they
ever do. For these reasons, it’s generally a good idea to visit each search engine and directory Web
site and manually submit your Web site for inclusion in their search engine databases.



Getting Added to a Search Engine’s Database
To add your Web site to a search engine, go to the particular search engine site and look for a link
or button somewhere on the main page that says something like “Add Your Web Site”, “Add a Page”
or “Add URL” (URL stands for “Uniform Resource Locator” — it means the same thing as “Web
address”). Click on the button or link, and you’ll usually be directed to a Web page where you can
fill out a form and submit your Web site.


I]Getting Added to a Web Directory’s Search Engine Database[/I]
Web directory sites may have their own search engine spiders that develop their search engine
database but quite often the Web directory partners with an existing search engine. Alliances are
very common, so it is worth the time to find out who is partnered with whom and submit your Web
site to all the relevant search engines. This will maximize the number of search engine databases
you appear in.



Submitting Your Web Site to a Directory Database
First and foremost, make sure you register your Web site with the major directories that we listed
earlier in the guide, as well as with any other Web directories that pertain to your industry. Look for
information on their home pages explaining how your can submit your Web site to their database.
You generally have to decide what category and sub-category would best represent your site. In
some cases you do not have a choice. Look through each Web directory’s help section to make
sure you understand what is required and how to go about properly registering your site.

 

Great Post, you mention some interesting techniques, I think also if you were to link articles to your website (you can get thousands of them from ezine.com) then it would speed up the process of getting your site listed on the search engines, as the spiders will crawl through the links and eventually find your site

Look forward to hearing your other methods

 

Rep Appreciated...........Havin Difficulties in Trading!!
Thnxx

 

I just want to ask, does it really effective? I've ever used this method by paying directory submission service, it's said they would submit my site to about 300 directories, and around 100 accepted, but I didn't see decent traffic (about 20 visitors/day), I don't know, maybe it's just not effective for some type of websites or other reasons. As I know, people are rarely searching something in a directory (cmiiw), it's like they only want to know what the website is, not specifically want to see the service/product offered.

Sorry, I don't mean to doubt your article, just want to have discussion about this.

 

Your Brand Name
One of the most important marketing assets that you have is the name of your online store. Give it
careful consideration. You should pick a name that’s easy to remember yet distinct from other similar
names on the Internet. Closely related to the issue of picking a name is choosing a suitable domain
name. The domain name is the part of your Web site address that appears after “www.” For example,
the domain name for the Office Depot is officedepot.com and the domain name for Eddie Bauer is
eddiebauer.com.

To avoid confusing your customers, you will want to have a domain name that is as close as
possible to your organization’s name. This will also make it easier for customers to find your Web
site. For example, customers looking for Eddie Bauer’s Web site would probably start by typing
www.eddiebauer.com into their Web browsers. In addition to being close to your business name,
your chosen domain name should be short, easy for your customers to remember, and intuitive.
Finally, keep in mind that you don’t have to have “www” in your Web address. Some organizations
have chosen to drop it entirely, e.g. CBS promotes itself simply as CBS.com.


In addition, you can, with the help of the technical folks who support your site, sometimes use
words or characters in front of your actual domain name, and get an extra “identity hook” that might
be unique enough to draw attention to your site. One such example of this is the Web site
Beer.com, which gained some attention during the 2000 Olympics. It ran an ad that used the
address mmm.beer.com – indeed, during the commercial, the graphic showed the “www” flipping
over to become “mmm,” as the announcer mimicked the “mmmm” or “tastes good” sound. There
was a huge increase in traffic to the site.


It’s important that both your brand name and your Web site address be as distinctive as possible to
avoid confusion with other similar companies selling on the Internet. There are tens of thousands of
merchants on the Internet all vying for attention, making it difficult for online merchants with similar
names to get noticed. Even if the domain name you want is available, you should find out if similar
names currently used by online stores might compete with yours. Many online merchants have
found it necessary to change their names because their names were being confused with other
similar names on the Internet.


When trying to come up with a name for your online store, consider getting a group of friends or
colleagues together to brainstorm with you. Alternatively, you could hire a market research firm to
hold focus groups with consumers.
Issues to Consider When Choosing a Name for Your Online Store


Can you get a Web site address (i.e., domain name) for that name?
Is the name too long?
Is the name easy to pronounce?
Are there other Web sites or online stores with similar-sounding
or similar-looking brand names or domain names?
Is your name unique or distinctive enough?
Is your name memorable and does it make an impression?
Is the name consistent with the image you want to project?

If you really want to have a domain name that someone else has already registered, you could
approach the owner and see if he/she is interested in selling the domain name to you. Many
companies register domain names but never activate them. Even a company that is using a
domain name may consider selling it to you for the right price.


Finally, if you believe that someone else has registered a domain name that infringes on a trademark
that you own, you can pursue legal action against the owner of the domain name in question.
Alternatively, an appeals process exists for domain names, and it might be possible for you to
launch an appeal to see if the other party can be forced to give up the name. To learn about this
option, visit a domain name registrar, and read about the international domain name appeals
process. You can also visit the ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy site at
www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm for more information.


Which raises an important point – it might be a good defensive maneuver for you to register as
many domain names as possible early on, related to your store name, your product names, or other
words and phrases that, when used as a domain name, might help drive traffic to your store.

 

Dont submit your sites to the search engines. Let them find you via backlinks!

If you submit your site to SE's you will get sandboxed!

 

Offline Marketing

Perhaps the most important piece of advice we can give you in this guide is this: Don’t restrict your
advertising and promotional efforts to the Web. Online stores often rely too heavily on online advertising
at the expense of more traditional advertising vehicles that may actually produce better results.
Throughout this guide, we’ll review a number of different ways for you to promote your online store
on the Web. But it’s important not to get too dependent on online marketing for your success. Think
about the types of customers you are trying to attract and what the best methods would be to reach
those customers. Rather than spending your money advertising on the Web, you may find that a
more effective strategy would be to place advertisements in a couple of well-targeted magazines.


For example, Noggintops (www.noggintops.com), an online hat retailer, has spent very little on
Internet advertising. Instead, the company did some marketing research and identified a number of
magazines that appealed to the company’s target market: outdoorsmen. Ads featuring the company’s
Web site address were then placed in those magazines. In fact, the bulk of Noggintop’s marketing
budget has been spent on offline ads. Our point is that you shouldn’t ignore traditional advertising
vehicles. Think about how you can use both print (e.g. newspapers, magazines, journals) and
broadcast media (radio and television stations) to reach your target audience. Be realistic with your
expectations. In years past, many Internet companies invested millions in television ads with often
disappointing results. Many companies quickly learned that brands can’t be built overnight. It can
take years to build a successful and recognized brand name.


That being said, if you develop any print or broadcast advertising, make sure that your Web address
is featured prominently in your ads. You may want to even consider purchasing advertising for the
sole purpose of promoting your Web site.

It is important to use your imagination when looking for ways to raise awareness of your Web site.

Don’t limit yourself to radio, television, and print media. Why not advertise your Web address in
buses or subways, or on the transfers handed out by your local transit authority? How about on
newspaper polybags (the plastic bags that newspapers are wrapped in when they are delivered to
your front door)? Or in movie theatres? Some organizations have even gone so far as to include
their Internet addresses on bananas! The possibilities are endless.

In many respects, marketing a Web site is no different than marketing any product or service. The
challenge is to find innovative ways to get the word out.

 

Offline advertising can work very well indeed. We have numerous cars driving around for our company with a sticker on them of our website. We let them drive around in big city's and see a huge increase in traffic everytime. The only thing is, you need to keep doing this, once the car is gone the traffic is gone. Is similar to tv and radio advertising but can be very worth it.

 

I agree that knowing your customers is extremely important and that's why i like e-mail marketing so much. If you have a list you can use the list to find out exactly what they want.

Create a dialog with the list members by asking questions and doing surveys. It's very useful for product development. If you know what your customers want it's like shooting fish in a barrel. You reduce the risk that you created a product that no-one wants considerably.

The relationship you created if you know your customers and they know you is worth a lot of money if used right.

/ Binko

 

yes thanks i was looking for that 7 bucks report, your ideas actually resembles those ideas....

thanks for it.

 

very good tips indeed. add rep to u. and why u got RED rep?? *just wondering*

 

i got a red by someone powerful for asking for that rep line in my signature.......

 

Here it goes for Today:

An important part of online marketing involves a process known as search engine optimization— ensuring that your Web site receives prominent placement on all the major search engines.

Ideally, you want your Web site to show up on the first page of results when a potential customer
searches for a keyword related to your business.

Before we go any further, you need to understand three things. First, there is no simple method or
magical formula for achieving good rankings on search engines. Second, every search engine uses
different ranking criteria. This is why the same search performed on different search engines will
yield different results. It is also why your Web site may be ranked number one on one search engine
but appear in the twentieth position on another. Third, search engines are constantly changing the
algorithms they use to index Web sites, so your site’s ranking on any given search engine may be in
a continual state of flux. Most search engines provide some information on their Web sites to help
you understand how they rank Web pages. Visit each search engine, read the help files, and try to
accommodate as many of the suggestions as possible. For example, the Lycos search engine
(www.lycos.com) has a page of information on its Web site with several tips and pointers to help
you optimize your Web site’s ranking in their index.

Reading help files will help you to understand what you need to do to get a good ranking for your
Web site. That being said, there are some general tips we can offer to help you improve your Web
site’s ranking on various search engines:

1) Don’t use graphics at the expense of text. When you create the front page of your Web
site, make sure you include lots of text that accurately describes your business. When search
engines index your Web site, they can read text, but they can’t read images. If your home
page consists of a bunch of graphics and very little text, it’s difficult for the search engine to
properly index your Web site. This means it will be hard for Internet users to find it when they
are using a search engine to find products and services. We’re not suggesting that you not
use graphics on your home page. However, if you use graphics, make sure they are accompanied
by lots of text.

2) Integrate important keywords in your text. Choose important keywords related to your
business and make sure those keywords are strategically positioned on your Web site. Come
up with two or three terms or phrases that might be the “hot” keywords that Internet users are
most likely to search for. These important words should appear more frequently, in headings
or in an introductory paragraph which has descriptive text that mentions these “hot” keywords.
This doesn’t mean that you should blatantly repeat the same words over and over again on
your Web site. Rather, when building your Web site, think carefully about the words you are
choosing to use on your home page. Make sure you integrate words and phrases into your
Web site that you think Internet users will be searching for.


More Sub Points Of this Topic Tommorrow

 

Hiya mates!! Sry for a Late update. Had my Exam.

Here Are Further Points:
3) Use meta-tags. Meta-tags are pieces of code that you include in the HTML code of your
Web site to influence the description that search engines give your Web site (this is called a
“descriptive meta-tag”) and to influence the words that search engines associate with your
site (this is called a “keywords meta-tag”).
If a Web site is using meta tags, you can see them by looking at the Web site’s HTML code
(the hypertext markup language is the computer code used to build pages on the World Wide
Web). If you are using the Netscape Web browser, you can look at a Web site’s HTML code
by choosing “View” from the list of options at the top of your browser, then select “Page
Source” or “Document Source”. If you are using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, select
“View” from the menu bar, then “Source”.
The information in a description meta-tag is used by the search engine to create a summary
description of your Web site. When an Internet user is browsing through a list of search
results on a search engine, the summary description from the meta tag is sometimes used to
create the abstract that appears under the title of each Web page. Many Internet users rely on
these abstracts to help them decide which Web sites to visit. It is therefore important that you
create a site summary for your Web site that accurately and concisely reflects its purpose.
A keywords meta tag looks like this:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="candles, candle holders, aromatherapy candles, floating
candles, scented candles, illume, illuminate, candle lanterns, candle lamps, illuminations
candles, essential oils, holders for candles, candle pillars, tapers, votive candles, tealight candles,
candlesticks, sconces, candlescapes, online stores, incense, handmade candles, handcrafted
candles, beeswax candles, gel candles">
A keywords meta-tag is essentially just a list of keywords related to your business. Notice that
each keyword in the list is separated by a comma. A keywords meta tag increases the likelihood
that your Web site will appear higher on the results list whenever someone does a search
using any of the words or phrases that appear in your tag.
When creating your keywords meta tag, we recommend that you don’t repeat the same keyword
multiple times in order to try and increase your Web site’s ranking. Some search engines have
been known to lower a Web site’s ranking in their index or remove the site altogether if they
discover this type of abuse.
We mention meta tags in this guide because so many Web sites use them and because they
are often cited as an important online marketing technique. However, the main problem with
meta tags is that only some of the large search engines recognize them – many ignore them
altogether. Furthermore, on search engines that do pay attention to meta tags, they are only
one of several factors a search engine uses to rank your Web site for users’ searches.
Therefore, meta tags are not a panacea for getting your site to the top of a search engine’s
results list – they are just one of many things that you can do to improve your site’s chances
of being found on the Web. If you want to find out whether a particular search engine recognizes
meta tags, visit its Web site and read the online help files.

Depending on what type of storefront software you used to build your online store, you may
or may not be allowed to modify the HTML code that makes up your Web site. In order to
create and modify your meta tags, you will need to have access to the HTML code behind
your Web site. Check with the company you are using to host your online store to see if this
is possible. If you are not technically inclined or you’re not familiar with HTML code, you may
want to hire someone to create your meta tags for you.



4) Give your Web site a descriptive title. Make sure that the title of your Web page describes
your business rather than simply mentioning the name of your business. The title of your Web
site is what appears at the very top of your Web browser’s window — it is not what appears
on the front page of your Web site.
Many search engines pay special attention to the words in your Web site’s title when they
index your Web site. In other words, you may increase the likelihood of appearing higher up
on a search engine’s results list if the words in your title closely match what an Internet user
is looking for. What you shouldn’t do is create a title like: “Welcome to my Web site” or
“Welcome to My Home Page”. Titles like this are much too generic.
Your Web site title is also important for another reason. The title of your Web site is often the
title that an Internet user will see in a search engine’s list of results. Creating a good descriptive
title for your Web site is one way to make it stand out from the rest. Internet users are most
likely to click on Web sites that have clear, descriptive titles. The title of your Web site is controlled
by a line of HTML code in your Web site called the title tag. A title tag might look like this:
<TITLE>Foot Locker: The Source for Athletic Footwear and Apparel</TITLE>
You’ll need to have access to your online store’s HTML code in order to change or modify
your Web site’s title.


5) Get other Web sites to link to you. Contrary to popular belief, many search engines look at
factors other than what’s on your Web site in order to figure out where to rank your site. For
example, if a lot of other Web sites link to you, this can help you to get a good ranking on
some search engines such as Google (www.google.com). Generally speaking, the more Web
pages that link to your Web site, the more “popular” your Web site is, and the higher your
Web site’s ranking in the Google database.

 

excelent ideas

 

Don''t waste money on this. It's just not worth it.

You are better of writing a good adrticle and submitting it to the ezine directories than pay someone to submit your website to a database of directories.

 

sjsjsj215: Are these your original articles?

brand your name, know your audience and the rest.. thanks


http://www.finalsense.com/learning/e_marketing_articles/online_marketing_strategies.htm

http://www.matt28hosting.com/mkt_guide.pdf

 

Its exactly the one in ur second link. Thnxx 4 ruining my thread.
But i'll keep posting.