10 Effective Steps to Internet Marketing Success

1. Brainstorm Your Domain Name

This is an important process, so don’t rush it. Even if it takes you weeks or even months to come up with a domain name you’re satisfied with. Take as much time as you need. Your domain name is that important.

I’m a firm believer in creating generic domain names that utilize your primary keywords. For example, NewyorkCityHotels.com or NapaValleyWines.com. Having a generic domain name serves two crucial purposes:

First, it will attract a more targeted audience to your website. A targeted audience will give you a much higher conversion ratio – allowing you to make maximum use of the traffic you receive.

Second, generic domain names that utilize your primary keywords will help with your search ranking. While SEO experts have opposing viewpoints whether or not this actually helps, based on my own personal experience, I can tell you that it does.

By the way, because of the astronomical number of domains on the Internet, you may have to get a little creative in order to utilize your primary keywords in your domain name.

For example, if your first choice, NewYorkCityHotels.com is already taken, try playing around with different variations of your keywords.

For instance, try this variation, HotelsinNewYorkCity.com…or this one, CityofNewYorkHotels.com. Also, don’t be afraid to use hyphens in your domain name. Using this technique allows me to utilize my primary keywords 100% of the time.

It also allows me to use the much preferred .com domain. You should try to use .com domains whenever possible, because most people will automatically put a .com on the end of a domain when they type it into a search engine. This puts you in prime position to pick up traffic from domains in your category that utilize extensions other than .com.

2. Register Your Domain Name, and Forget It

After you decide on a domain name, don’t build your website right away. Register your domain name, and forget it.

Why? Because in my opinion, you should never build a website without having a plan to promote, as well as monetize your website. Develop a well-thought-out marketing plan going forward, then when you build your website, you can hit the ground running.

3. Develop Your Marketing Plan

I’m a member of several small business forums, and without fail, the two questions that get asked most often are:

“How do I promote my website?” or, “How do I get free traffic to my website?” Those two basic questions get asked every single day.

That’s why it’s so important to develop a marketing plan in advance. You need to know the answer to those questions, before you build your website. You can’t get to your destination, if you don’t know know where you want to go.

4. Your Budget Determines Your Marketing Plan

If you have thousands of dollars to work with, then you have many more options when it comes to promoting your website. For example, you can buy ads in offline publication, as well as online publications.

A word of advice: Unless you are an experienced marketer with extremely deep pockets, stay away from pay-per-click advertising. PPC advertising will eat up your advertising budget quicker than Usain Bolt breaks world records.

In reality, most people coming online don’t have thousands of dollars to work with. In fact, most people coming online have little or no money at all.

But that’s the beauty of the Internet. Even if you are broke, you can still promote your website effectively, if you know what you’re doing.

For example, you can participate in social media networking, and promote your website via mega-popular sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a host of other social media websites.

Other free and highly effective promotion methods include article marketing, forum posting, guest blogging, RSS feeds, volunteering your expertise on Question & Answer sites like AllExperts.com and more.

5. Learn How to Implement Your Marketing Plan Effectively

Starting a business – any business without having even basic marketing skills is downright foolish. Competency in marketing is the most important business skill that you can have.

If you become proficient in the art of marketing, it will allow you to become profitable that much quicker. And there won’t be anything that you can’t accomplish.

Some of the greatest sales and marketing books ever written are located right under your nose, at your local library – and they’re free. Do yourself a favor and study the classics. Many of the marketing techniques being used today are based on sound marketing principles established many decades ago.

A few of my favorite marketing books include The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy, Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joe Sugarman, Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz, Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples, Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy, Magic Words That Bring You Riches by Ted Nicholas and How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor O. Schwab.

If you can’t find these books at your local library, you can pick them up for just a few dollars on Amazon.

6. Apply What You Learn

It’s not enough to just read the classics, you have to apply what you learn. Otherwise, what’s the point? That means reading the books more than once – several times if necessary.

Actually, you should read the books as many times as it takes for the information to sink in and become second nature to you.

You should also take copious notes, and practice writing ads over and over and over again. You should give yourself regular written exams on the information in the books, and each time you test yourself, your goal should be to score 100%.

Sounds like hard work, doesn’t it? It is. The question is how hard are you willing to work to get what you want?

7. Monetize Your Website

There are a number of ways that you can monetize your website – from selling advertising on your site to affiliate programs. My preferred method is affiliate programs.

Why? Because affiliate programs are completely hands-off for you. No billing, no inventory, no hassles. You simply choose from among the thousands of affiliate programs available on the Internet, select your program of interest, and promote the living daylights out of it. Then take your checks to the bank…that’s it.

8. Take Your Income to the Next Level

Once you start making $50 per month with affiliate programs, build another website, and start promoting another affiliate program. And when that website starts making $50, build another website and another and another.

Why? Because if you have 10 websites making $50 per month, that’s a monthly income of $500. And therein lies the secret to making money on the Internet.

Why beat yourself up trying to make hundreds – or even thousands of dollars with a single website? Take the path of least resistance. Build a bunch of websites that make just $50 per month. If you can build fifty websites in a year, that’s a monthly income of $2500, or $30,000 a year.

Does your current job pay that much? And the beauty of this method is you can keep giving yourself a raise. If you build another fifty websites the following year, you just doubled your income to $5,000 per month.

And if you can build another fifty websites the following year, you just tripled your income to $7500 per month.

The key to making this method work is building simple, low-maintenance websites. Just add content once or twice a month, and forget about them.

Think it can’t be done? Think again. I’m doing it, and so are thousands of other smart and resourceful entrepreneurs.

9. What About Content?

The key to having a website that other websites want to link to is having quality, content that is relevant to the overall theme of your website. You can either produce the content yourself, import it from somewhere else, or a combination of both.

If you elect to import your content from somewhere else, you can either use free content from article directories like EzineArticles, or you can purchase PLR articles, which I don’t recommend.

Why? Because hundreds of other people purchased the exact same PLR package as you. So those articles have to be completely rewritten, which is a time-consuming process.

Whichever way you choose to go, just remember, it’s important to have lots and lots of relevant content on your website.

How much content? The more the better. After all, the more content you have on your website, the more often your visitors will return to read that content.

10. Build Your Website

Okay, now that you’ve properly laid the foundation for success, it’s time to build your website. The type of website you build will again depend on the amount of money you have to play around with.

I have a bunch of websites that I paid absolutely nothing for. And I have websites that I paid hundreds of dollars for. My recommendation: If you don’t have to spend money on a website, don’t.

Nowadays, it’s not necessary to spend a lot of money to get a decent looking website.

But whatever you do, be sure to purchase your own domain name. You definitely don’t want the name Blogspot, WordPress or Homestead in your domain name. It just looks amateurish.

I buy most of my domains through network solutions.com, because I’ve been using them for years, and I’m comfortable with them. Their domains cost a lot more, but they more than make up for it with great customer service.

That’s something you just can’t put a price on. That being said, I’ve also purchased $10 domain names from GoDaddy without any problems.

One last thing, don’t beat your brains out worrying about SEO. Just make sure your primary keywords appear in your title tag, and you’ll be just fine.    

- By David Jackson