Online Marketing Success in 2013

Online Marketing Success Requires Key Elements

As the years go by the online marketing world grows tremendously and there is an increasing number of people who want to get into online marketing. But in most cases some people really don't even know what that means or what it takes. There are so many things that go under the overall online marketing tree that if you spoke to a hundred different "Internet Marketers" and asked them what they do, you would probably get a hundred different answers. Most of us have a hard time even trying to explain what it is we do to inquiring minds.

In it's definition, online marketing is the provision and promotion of products and services online. It merges the creative and technical aspects of marketing: design, development, advertising and sales. Since the beginning of the internet and search engines, internet usage has rapidly and steadily increased since the 80s/90s. The daily usual number of internet searches has increased a lot from just under 10,000 in the late 90s to well over 4 billion in the past year. That tally's up to more than a trillion internet searches a year with just Google by itself!

People are not just doing informative searches, but searches for products/services too. This means that the majority of consumers find out about the products and businesses they buy and do business with mainly through the internet. However, most search engine users usually only focus on the first page of search results - typically the top five results. Considering that more and more business is conducted online every year, it means that competition for these positions has grown and that they have major value to savvy business owners. It has come to the point where competition in local, national or international markets requires a consistent strong online presence. Gaining and maintaining a position on the first page of SERPs (search engine results pages) influence people to trust the solidity, dexterity and genuineness of your business/service.

Online Marketing Success is composed of a number different things like seo, ppc, social media, and online public relations are just a few of them. All of these strategies, when implemented properly and effectively, work in unison to boost website visibility with the ultimate goal of increasing conversions. Conversion is the result you want for a visitor to your website to make a purchase, phone call, download, complete a form etc.. It is whatever result based goal you have set for your website.

So, in this post I am going to give you some information and insight about some of the typical things you would need to learn and do if you were to start your own online marketing business.

Here are just some of the things you should learn and master to become good at online marketing...

SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will give you long term with the goal to increase popularity,visibility, authority, relevance and in result more conversions. SEO could be a whole course by itself. There are plenty of ebooks, blogs, courses and websites dedicated mainly to SEO training. It is extremely important and a huge part of what most advertising & marketing specialists do in their regular daily routine. There are thousands of internet marketers who spend literally day after day doing SEO and nothing else. It can take a long time to master the process/perfect the different techniques out there. Also, it is always changing, so staying on top of it all can be really exhausting. Every good internet marketer can have SEO as their main specialty and still be learning something new almost every day.

Part of SEO is the development of a website's content and structure. The most important thing to remember when conducting this is to write and build a website for users, not search engines. It is the main goal of a search engine is to show it's users relevant results. Their technology is always advancing and has become much better at recognizing low quality websites were the sole purpose is to get hits and be manipulative then penalize them. This means that the difficulty with which a website is controlled and the quality of its content are important factors in obtaining visibility on the major search engines.

Web Design

Before you start advertising & marketing anything on the internet or build an online marketing business, you need to have a website of some sort. There are plenty of tools and resources available (such as Word Press) that will help build a site for you. However, it still takes time to learn how to use those tools and actually get a site built the way you want it. Even the most rookie friendly systems have a learning curve and can take some time to set up. Then, you must learn some coding in order to make changes in certain places and customize your site beyond the basic themes/templates that site builders include.

And don't forget about DNS settings, domain registrations, settings tweaks, system installs, content uploads etc.. Those things also take time to do and require you to learn how to do them. There's a lot that goes into building a website and it's just one part of being an online marketing pro.

Writing Content

This is one thing that can take up a LOT of time in the daily routine of just about most internet marketer. Content is king in the world of advertising & marketing. You need it for just about everything you do. It doesn't matter if you are constructing a static site, updating a blog, marketing sites, writing articles, responding to emails, sending out your newsletter, replying to comments, participating in forums, copy writing, and so on... You will be writing and writing some more. It's all about content in the internet world so get ready to wear out many keyboards on your computer!

Blogging

The Internet has without a doubt moved towards blogs in the past couple of years and will likely continue to do so until they are the predominant force in the online world. Blogging is a very essential part of online marketing in a lot ways. Depending on your business standards, it can really be very vital to success online. It is good for making a brand for yourself, getting your content out to the internet, helping to spread your brand, building up a following, or you can make money from your blog only. Some marketers solely earn their whole incomes off of blogging. Although, in most cases, they are typically know as a blogger.

Social Media Marketing

I know you might have accounts with Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,, Google Plus, and possibly a few others. If you don't then you certainly know someone close to you who does. Well, a typical internet marketer will have all of those profiles plus another 10 or 20 or more accounts on other social media sites that they have to manage.

Think about how much time you spend on those sites every day. It's not hard for an hour or more to pass without even noticing it. And you are only using them to keep up with family, friends, and what's go ing on around town. Internet marketers do all of that plus use them to network with business associates and prospects, keep up on our industry, spread the word about our content, and for other marketing reasons.

Being a social media consultant and doing all the social media marketing and updating for companies is something many people do as a full time business. It can take up a lot of time, but some how online marketing pro have to squeeze it into their daily routine along with about a thousand different things.

Pay Per Click

When you search something on Google you will notice there are usually some ads at the top above the organic rankings and a tower of them on the right side next to the organic results. They look a lot like the regular results but are slightly different. PPC are paid ads that show through Google AdWords. When somebody says PPC ads this is what they are referring to, even though there are technically many different forms of PPC. An individual bids on specific keywords in order to get an ad displayed and then they pay for every click they get on the ad.

This method is very popular with online marketers and other businesses that sell products or services online. The keyword research, set up, and management takes a lot of time, effort and skill. You can waste a lot of money if you just throw up your ad and let it go. Top PPC pro's can spend several years testing, tweaking and learning their systems in order to master Adwords and make their campaigns the most profitable.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is simply building up a list of email subscribers, creating a trust worth relationship with people so they join your list, sending them good useful content/resources, keeping them updated on the latest news in the niche they are interested in or about your business, and sending all sorts of other information. One popular saying in the IM world is, "the money is in the list" and there is a lot of truth to that. But it can be a little difficult to build a profitable list and as an online marketer you might be spending a lot of time perfecting this skill.

Product Creation

Product creation is a huge thing that online marketer's do is create information products such as ebooks, along with business services, SEO, membership sites, marketing tools, and so on. This stuff can take a long time to develop depending on what it is. Almost every website or web based service you use, or ebook you read, were created by some sort of online marketing expert in one way or another.

Videos

A huge part of Online Marketing Success nowadays is video production. I remember that back in 2003 this wasn't really a big deal at all. There were very few people doing them in those days. But video marketing has exploded in the past few years and will only continue to grow into the future. Videos can be instructive, funny, informational with the intent of maybe going viral, or made for advertising purposes. Whatever the reasons for videos, the fact is they are a part of running an online marketing business now and they can take a lot of work to do.

Because of the rapid increase in the use of the internet to find all kinds of products, services, organizations and tools, a advertising & marketing strategy centered around the internet is the modern way to advertise or promote what you have to offer. Online marketing is also the best form of marketing because it actually offers a way to track and analyze data. This means that your strategies can be tested, created, retested, refined and revised so that your site is designed to get the most conversions as it can possibly get.

Alright in conclusion, as I said, those are just SOME of the main things you will be doing regularly with online marketing. There's a lot more that you will surely be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. I only scratched the surface of what being an online marketing pro fully entails. I didn't even get into client servicing, media buying, webinars, forums, training, etc.. It virtually never stops!

So, it's definitely not all fun and games relaxing on the beach with your laptop like many people think. Online marketing is a real business and there is a lot of work involved to build, grow, and maintain it. But if you are up for the challenge and willing to put in the time and effort, it can be a very rewarding way to make a living!