I've got the general idea of Internet marketing, having been around for quite a while. But good Internet marketers have a plan for their sites and much revolves around mastering the basics and compiling a good list of what to do. One can hang around DP for a long time and, if you search these forums for several days, might be able to come up with a hodgepodge of different ways to market your site and business. What do good CMOs do? What do good marketers do? I'm hoping to compile a list of resources, articles, books and suggestions that could best capture all this information in one area. 1) List of the basics of what needs to be done: SEO, viral methods, proper capture of demographic data, buying advertising, etc. 2) Details of what needs to be done for each item on the list: SEO requires proper keyword generation, links should contain subject header, etc. 3) How to spend your money: Buying adwords, how to best bid, using spreadsheets to analyze your effectiveness, etc. 4) Some good real world examples of how this knowledge has been put into play for sites in different industries. I know that compiling this information would be very useful for me as I improve my marketing skills and knowledge and I'm sure that as a collective group here we might all benefit from having a good deal of this information in one place. Maybe a thread like this already exists but I didn't see a recent one.
Just don't confuse a to-do list with a marketing plan. Good list to help someone start off with, but I'd add market research. It really is the most important thing someone can do before starting a website or any kind of venture. Just because someone thinks an idea is good or hasn't been done, doesnt' make it true. One big mistake is jumping into a market where there simply isn't a need, or where you can't offer something unique in your site, b/c it's all been done. So a good amount of research would save a lot of people a lot of headaches in the longrun, if they take the time to do it before thinking about the tactic aspect of marketing.
Very true - the biggest mistake is providing supply where there is limited demand! I haven't yet seen a compilation of the above in any book or series of articles other than just basic fluff. The reason why so many get angry at these "be a millionaire in 30 days" e-books are because most are really run off of the limited effort maximum hype concept. Unless the book is 100+ solid pages, chances are that it won't be good if it's covering this topic. Let the buyer beware. If we are talking only about 1 specific topic, e.g. SEO, then a shorter book (still of probably several dozen pages) would be acceptable. So what resources do people have that would be helpful? Searching on Amazon I found only 2 recent books that might be useful but most of them looked like the usual packed fluff. No solid detailed plans like running through a real world example of marketing a site, submission tips and tricks, SEO, etc.
Hi There The newsletter from site-reference.com is very good for how to get started with marketing your website. I also have a web marketing and resource site at webref.eu which might give you some useful resources. Rgds