Internet Marketing has become a multi-faceted discipline that encompasses everything from Email Marketing to SEO. You can’t just put a website with some products on the Internet and expect people to find you. It just doesn’t work that way.
While the adage “it takes money to make money” holds true, there are a few things, that don’t necessarily require a cash investment on your part, that you can do to raise your visibility. If you have more time than money, some basic, easy SEO and leveraging of Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the way to go.
On-page SEO prepares your site for the search engine crawlers so that relevant information about your site is readily available to them. SMM promotes your site, not only by making it visible to end users that may find it useful, but also by creating links to your site that will act as road signs for the search engine crawlers that your site exists and is ready to be crawled.
Social Networks or Social Media Sites
If you’ve never heard of Facebook, you’ve been living under a rock for the past four years. It’s everywhere; on your cell phone, referenced on TV and all over the Internet, and I mean all over. Between the “Like” buttons, “Recommend” buttons, “Send” buttons and “Share” buttons on just about every site on the Internet, Facebook just will not be ignored. Facebook claims to have over 700 million users with active accounts. While the links on Facebook are “no-follow”, they still provide social signals (I’ll get into this a bit later) and a path to your site for users and crawlers alike.
You can create a business “Page” on Facebook that will act as your businesses presence on the popular social networking site. By doing this, you are taking the first steps to use SMM as a means of getting some much needed exposure for your website and your business. If you have any trouble with the set-up process, don’t worry; Facebook has created a Facebook for Business page that will walk you through the ins and outs of what they have to offer.
Facebook isn’t your only choice when it comes to using SMM for promotion. You have other options, as well, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and a myriad of Social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon.
Some social bookmarking sites allow “follow” links, which do pass some “link power” back to your site. It is this “link power” that helps with getting well Search Engine Optimized sites to rank higher on the SERPs.
Social Signals
Other than the links themselves, major search engines have taken to using social signals as a part of their algorithms. This means that the more something is liked or shared or tweeted or bookmarked, the more weight it carries with the search engines and the better the potential for first page rankings.
Of course, as with any campaign, results with these techniques may vary, but if you can afford the services of an Internet Marketing firm or a professional, it is highly recommended to you do so. SEO is an art, not a science and you would not necessarily hire a house painter to paint a masterpiece.
