Monday, October 15, 2012

Build A Sticky Site: Eight Tips To Increase Visitor Engagement

By Daniel Otoole


As the world increasingly relies on the Internet, it is more useful than ever to start marketing your business there. By online marketing, you can enhance your business sales whether you have an online business or a brick and mortar business. Some people think they are unable to use internet marketing because they do not know how, but the truth is that it is very easy to do this. Here are some steps you can use today to start marketing your business online.

Check out sites like Craigslist and post a short ad with a link to your site. If you sell products, list them on EBay, Amazon or similar sites and give the buyer the option to come pick up your products at your store. Get in touch with other local businesses, preferably with a similar target audience, and ask them if you can be featured on their sites in exchange for posting links to their pages.

Get people to order more than one item by offering an interesting discount or throwing in a free additional item. You should offer suggestions of other products you are selling on the pages where you present your products. Ask your customers if they would like to receive promotional emails every month, and use these emails to advertise similar products or refills for the ones they have already bought. Keep track of which products are ordered together or which suggestions get the most attention so you can add more similar products.

Update the content on your social media page daily. With daily updates people are going to always see what the latest is on your site, and this could get them interested with what you have to offer. Social media pages are going to be your primary source of marketing, so become as familiar as you can with how to operate and manage any social media page.

Niche marketing is also something else that you should consider for improving your website. Basically put, niche marketing is making sure that your online presence is marketed to only the segment of the online population that would be interested in your content, products or services. If you sell antique dolls, you want your search engine optimization and ads to target antique doll collectors, not someone shopping around for baseball cards. Maximize the impact of your ads by making sure your marketing material is being seen by those with an interest.

Define your unique selling point, or USP. By determining what it is about you that is better than the competition, you are able to really tap into something special. By giving your customer a compelling reason to choose you, you make yourself seem to be the best choice. To find out what your USP is, investigate your competition. Can you deliver more quickly than they can? Is your product better? Do you offer better customer service? Find out what they are not doing that you can.

No matter how you go about marketing yourself, the entire process really comes down to drawing more attention to your site. This makes link-building an effective tool for virtually any Internet marketing campaign. Getting other sites to link to yours is a good thing in many ways. Those links will send some traffic to you directly, of course. They'll also improve your standing on the search engine results pages, allowing you to capture fresh visitors who would never find you otherwise.

Use video and podcasts to excite visitors. Video is becoming more and more popular by a number of small businesses. Why? Because a video allows your potential customers a chance to see a product in action, and it also helps them to get a look at you. People enjoy hearing and seeing the person who is trying to convince them to buy something. It can make them feel comfortable enough to buy what you are offering.

If you are new to Internet marketing, do not hesitate to get help from a professional. You could hire a webmaster to design a quality website, or an Internet marketing expert to help you design a strategy adapted to your products and your audience or a Search Engine Optimization expert to get more traffic. Do some background research about a professional before you hire them and make sure you learn as much as possible about Internet marketing by staying involved in the process of developing a marketing plan.

Internet marketing can be a lot of fun and a lot of work. Use the tips laid out here to make the experience a more rewarding one, and get ready to see an increase in sales.




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