I've been talking to more and more business owners who are interested in learning more about marketing their business online.  I guess that's to be expected with the way the economy is going.  Marketing online has so many advantages in terms of cost, being able to track what's working, and being able to reach people EXACTLY at the time that they're looking for your products or services.

That being said, it can be a real challenge learning this stuff.  I was thinking about this the other day.  There are so many nuances to online marketing, or even particular aspects of Internet marketing like pay per click, search engine optimization, social media and so on.  I realized how daunting a task it must seem to be to get started, or to at least learn enough to be able to choose the right company or consultant to help you navigate the online marketplace.

So I thought, "What would I tell a prospective client if I were sitting in front of them as far as how to get started with online marketing".  I'm assuming the business has a website already or is planning on having one created.  I say "assuming" because you really don't NEED to have a website for some online marketing methods (e.g., email marketing).  But for most businesses, you'll want to have a website.  So with that little caveat out of the way, here's what I would suggest:

1. Decide exactly what you want your prospects to do once they visit your website.

Sounds simple, but most websites aren't focused on this.  You really need to think of your website as a lead generation device.  It provides information, testimonials, perhaps prices, and other information for potential customers.  Okay, then what?  What do you want them to do next?  Do you want them to pick up the phone and call? Come in your store? Submit a message via your contact form and make an appointment?  Whatever that is, you need to be sure that your website is setup in such a way that it makes it AS EASY AS POSSIBLE for the website visitor to take that action.

So if you want people to pick up the phone and call to make an appointment, be sure simple things are covered...like having your phone number on every page.  Same goes for your contact form, if that's the primary action you're looking for.  I know, I know, you already have a "Contact Us" page on your website, right?  But even that single little click seems like a lot of "extra work" for your website visitors and some portion of them are probably leaving your site as opposed to submitting the form or calling you.  Easy fix.  The whole game is to make it as easy as possible for website visitors to convert - convert into calls, contact form submisisons, or whatever action you're shooting for.

2. Learn how get traffic to your site - choose 2 or 3 methods and implement.

Now that you have a site that hopefully has a good chance of converting website visitors into sales, it's time to get some traffic to the site.  There are a bazzillion and one ways to drive traffic to websites.  So I'd first suggest learning about the pros and cons, ups and downs of each method.  This sounds like a good idea for the next blog post, so keep an eye out for a post on that in a few days.  However, once you know the ins and outs of traffic generation methods, just pick 2 or 3 and test them out.  I suggest a few because you never want to have all your eggs in one basket.  But you don't want to try everything at once because you'll just drive yourself crazy unless you have a huge staff to help out.

3. Test and track everything.

This is where people tend to drop the ball, unfortunately.  So we have a site that will hopefully do a good job of converting visitors to leads, sales, etc.  And we've done (or are doing) what it takes to drive traffic to the site.  Well now we need to measure the results and see how well our site is converting those website visitors.  I think a lot of business owners skip this step because it's not something they include in their other marketing.  The newspaper guy or phone book sales rep isn't going to tell you how to track the effectiveness of your ad, because most likely, it converts at an abysmal rate.  So people neglect to do this with their online marketing too.

The thing is, tracking is dead simple with things like Google Analytics or the stats package that's built into our online business builder tool.  With today's economy like it is, it's not time to be just throwing darts and hoping something works.  Instead, why not track the results and identify areas of improvement?  On which pages are people entering or leaving your site? How long are they staying?  How many "actions" are you getting for a given number of visitors?  As they say, what you measure improves.

So if you're a new business or an established business interested in online marketing, this is the rough plan I'd suggest.  Keep an eye out for a more in-depth post covering more on item #2 above.