Built-In Content Management

With traditional web development programs, you have to rely on your developers to create an administration panel for you to manage your content through. WordPress offers a built-in content management system so you can keep track of the backend of your site with ease. You can manage pages, menus, categories, posts, and much more. If you know some of the coding behind WordPress sites, you can also use your dashboard to edit the look and layout of your site. Everything is available right at your fingertips.

Low Cost

Using WordPress does not cost any money at all, so the only thing you will need to invest money in is the WordPress services you use for your site. Once you pay for the website itself, all you have to pay for is the general maintenance of it every month. If you decide to manage it on your own, you don’t even have to worry about that. WordPress is the affordable solution for any business owner on a budget, leaving you more money to spend on off site SEO.

SEO Plugins

If you want to easily improve your site’s search engine optimization, you can do so through SEO plugins on WordPress. Most of these are free to use, and they will cut down the time it takes to market your website. You should still look to the help of SEO experts to get your site exactly where you want it to be on the web, but at least this will help them out in the long run.

Final Thoughts

WordPress is affordable, convenient, and incredibly easy to use. With the right WordPress design, you can take your website exactly where you want it to go on the web. Get a quote today to see what you could do with WordPress.

Low Cost

You can market your business online for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Because there is no printed material to pay for online, most of the money you spend goes toward help from professional internet marketers. If you are trying to minimize spending and maximize results, the web is the right venue for your business promotion.

Large Exposure

If you market your business in your community, you are limited to the number of people who may come across your ad. With the internet, you literally have exposure to the entire world. You may not have a plan for taking your business global, but the web may convince you that that is possible. You might be surprised by just how much business you can gain from promoting your business online.

Good Reputations

You can greatly improve the image of your company by going through an internet marketing campaign for your business. By having a properly marketed website, you can show your customers and clients that you are up to date with modern technology. It is easy to gain the trust of your clients on the web if you have a professional site to show them.

Conclusion

Internet marketing may not seem like an odd investment for a small business, but the benefits are well worth the costs. There is no easier way to get your name out to the community, and the work you do now will last well into the future. Check out some of the web marketing opportunities available to you today.

• More than 90% of social network users will be on Facebook in 2012.
• Online video viewers will reach 169.3 million in 2012.
• 83.9% of internet researchers will make at least one purchase via the web during 2012.
• 88.1% of US internet users ages 14+ will browse or research products online in 2012.
• About 2/3 of web users will use social networks in 2012.
• Online shoppers will reach 184.3 million in 2012, up 3.3% from 2011.
• Online buyers will reach 154.6 million in 2012, up 4.4% from 2011.
• 53.5% of the population and 70.8% of internet users (up 7.1% from 2011) will watch online video in 2012.
• Facebook will reach 143.4 million US users in 2012, up 8.2% from 132.5 million in 2011.

Those predictions only reflect a small portion of what may be to come over the next decade on the web. Why not make use of that while you can? Whether you choose to work with social networking, video marketing, or something else along those lines, you have a huge audience to pull from on the web. The key to working with that audience is figuring out what they want in 2012 and providing them with it in some way. Good internet marketers can help you do just that. Start thinking about tomorrow today.

• Adult-aged eReader users will reach 45.6 million in 2012, up from 33.3 million in 2011.
• All mobile phone users will reach 242.6 million in 2012, up 2.3% from 2011.
• In 2012, 76.4% of tablet users will be iPad users.
• In 2012, 94% of smartphones users will be mobile internet users.
• In 2012, the audience of internet users in the U.S. will expand by 3.1% to 239 million, representing 75.6% of the total population.
• iPad users will reach 41.9 million in 2012.
• Mobile buyers will reach 37.5 million in 2012.
• Mobile internet users will reach 113.9 million in 2012, up 17.1% from 97.3 million in 2011.
• Mobile shoppers will reach 72.8 million in 2012.
• Mobile video viewers will reach 54.6 million in 2012.
• Smartphone buyers will reach 36.4 million in 2012.
• Smartphone shoppers will reach 68.6 million in 2012.
• Smartphone users will reach 106.7 million in 2012, up 18.4% from 2011.
• Smartphone video viewers will reach 51.2 million in 2012.
• Tablet users will reach 54.8 million in 2012, up 62.8% from 33.7 million in 2011.

The predictions above are courtesy of Hubspot Blog. I’ll share the other stats from that site in a future post, but I found them to be quite compelling. There are tons of different things that you can do with mobile marketing if you have the right SEO experts on your side. As you can see from the predictions, this could be a great way to reach out to your customers in the future. All you have to do is find the right plan to help you do that.

• 40% of US smartphone owners compare prices on their mobile device while in-store, shopping for an item.
• 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog.
• 67% of B2B companies and 41% of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook.
• 78% of business people use their mobile device to check email.
• 78% of internet users conduct product research online.
• 84% of 25-34 year-olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising.
• 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted-in to.
• Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic.
• The number of marketers who say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business has increased 83% in just 2 years.

Fascinating, right? The fact is that the web is taking over the world, so you might as well do what you can to get involved with it now. Your business is only going to grow if you earn how to use SEO strategies and tips to your advantage. With the right amount of practice and a good team of marketers on your site, you could get some of those stats above to work in your favor. Stick around here, and we’ll make it through the journey together.

• Don’t harass your customers: If they start getting emails from you every hour, they will filter your messages straight to the trashcan.
• Avoid sales-y language: It is usually better to talk to people like they are your acquaintances, not total strangers.
• Create compelling titles: Set up your email in a way that makes it seem more like a message and less like an ad.
• Minimize the graphics: If you put too many pictures into your emails, you may not be able to reach out to people with antiquated email providers.
• Respond to emails: If you get any emails back, respond to them. That will make your customers trust you more in the end.

Your email marketing can only be as effective as you want it to be. If you have the right team of SEO experts on your side, you should be able to launch a successful internet marketing campaign with emails, articles, social network accounts, and more. All it takes is a little bit of effort on your part to find out who your audience is and what they want to read about in their emails. You can formulate your marketing campaign from there.

Content Doesn’t Display

Most flashy web designs only work with the latest versions of the web browsers they are designed for. Seeing that a good portion of the population does not update their web browsers regularly, you may have a lot of customers missing out on parts of your website because they don’t show up. You have to keep this in mind because you could actually lose customers this way. Rather than relying on the flash to keep the customers on the site, you may be better off letting the content speak for itself. It has to be visible to do that though.

Pages Load Slowly

No amount of SEO expertise can overcome a page loading slowly. You could have a million people coming to your site at all times, but that won’t mean a darn thing if they don’t stay on the page. A slow loading time could have a big impact on your page ranking because it influences the way users experience your website. If you cannot get your pages to pull up because of all the graphics on them, you need to tone down your web design.

Users Get Confused

You have to remember that a lot of web users aren’t technologically savvy. They don’t know what to do online other than click a button with a word on it that they recognize. If you complicate your site too much, you run the risk of confusing people, to the point that they will no longer want to be on your site. The only way to keep them there is to focus on the function of your site, not necessarily the graphics.

Think about how successful sites like Craigslist and Wikipedia are. They don’t have a lot of flash, but they have a lot of people coming around time and time again. You need to figure out a way to do that for your website if you want to be a success.

YouTube Partner Program

The Partner Program from YouTube is similar to Google Adsense. You can potentially get paid to have advertising around your videos. Any time someone clicks on an ad, you earn money in your account. If your videos go viral, that could lead to huge profits for you over time. Here is some information directly from YouTube that you can keep in mind about this option:

“Created in 2007, we now have 20,000+ partners from 22 countries around the world. Hundreds of partners are making six figures a year, and the number of partners making over $1,000 a month is up 300% since 2010.”

Sounds like a good setup to me.

Product Advertising

If you have a new product or service that you are trying to promote, you can get it out there through YouTube. Then you will be able to draw in potential customers that are interested in whatever it is you have to offer. This is a form of video marketing that can be used to generate direct revenue for your business. All you have to do is make a video about your product or service and get it out on the web. If you do this correctly, you should be able to make some pretty decent money from your YouTube videos.

Try to think outside the box, and you should be able to come up with a few options to make money through YouTube. With the amount of viewers this site has every day, there is bound to be a money-making option out there for you.

Offer a Giveaway

People are more likely to give out their email addresses if they know that they can get something for that in return. If you hold a giveaway or promotional offer in exchange for email information, you might be able to get a lot of people to sign up for accounts. You could give out a free eBook or a chance to win a big prize of some sort. What you give out is entirely up to you, but this could be an easy way to build leads for the future.

Provide an Opt-Out Button

If you force people to see your emails, they are more likely to mark them as spam. Try to provide a check box that people can click into when they create an account, allowing them to avoid your emails entirely. This may seem counterproductive, but it will at least give people a chance to sign up for an account without necessarily receiving emails from you. The ones that do want to hear from you will leave the box checked, and then you will have a clear idea of who you can contact. You can execute your internet marketing plan from there.

Be Transparent

There is no reason to sneak your way into getting email addresses. Just tell people what you are doing from the start. A simple section that says “Sign up for our free newsletter!” is all you need to get people to register for your email marketing plan. If you are honest with your customers, they will return the favor every time.

Affiliate Marketing

You may be focused on using a blog to market a website, but you could also use it to market someone else’s site. If another site has a pay per click marketing plan going on, you could get paid every time someone clicks on the link on your site. This will make your blog look less like a link farm for your website, and it may give you a chance to make some extra money on the side. It is a winning solution all the way around.

Product Sales

If your blog has a cool name or an interesting theme, you may think about selling products related to it. You could create a logo and use it on merchandise from Zazzle.com, CafePress.com, or a site similar to that. You don’t actually have to buy any of the merchandise until a customer orders it, and then you can have it shipped right to their door. If you add an option to buy merchandise on your blog, you may be able to generate a source of income through product sales.

The main purpose of your blog may be to promote your website, but it can be used for more than search engine optimization. You could bring in some extra money from the blog to invest in new marketing services in the future. You may not make much from this, but it is nice to know that the option is out there. Then you can determine if you want to take part in it or not.