Online marketing has a lot of the same fundamentals as pre-web marketing, but it also has its distinctions. Like all advertising, there are basics that must be established before a campaign can even hope to be established. These basics are not only the foundation – they must evolve and grow with a company or website. Though there are a lot of tasks and techniques, they can all be boiled down to one word: building.
There are three things that you should build in order to be successful in online marketing.
Credibility
In order to be successful, people have to trust you. They have to believe that you have integrity. You show this by providing valuable information. Having a useful website is the first step to establishing credibility. If the information on your website is good, then it is more likely that you know what you’re talking about.
It is useful to cite past experience and projects when trying to build credibility. Of course, this can be a bit of a vicious cycle because it sometimes seems like you need credibility to build these past examples. However, if you have a quality product or service, you will be able to fight through.
Relationships
In business, success often comes down to who you know. People are not very trusting. If you are recommended by someone who is already a trusted source then you are more likely to squeeze your foot in the door.
This is the idea behind celebrity endorsements. Online, you can easily have people post reviews of your products on your own site, as well as popular retail sites. It is important to solicit honest reviews and not pay for disingenuous positive feedback. If you sacrifice integrity, both your relationships and credibility will suffer.
Relationships are also useful in getting traffic to your website. By contributing to the conversation on reputable sites, you can get your name out there for others to see. You are also setting yourself up as a fallow authority in your particular niche.
Links
This is where this becomes an internet marketing article as opposed to a rehash of traditional marketing techniques. In the tangible world, credibility and relationships lead to marketing resources. On the internet, they lead to links.
Links, small though they are, are a vital part of a business’s online marketing strategy. Links are how people get to your site. They are also how search engines index your site. When someone links to your site, they are proclaiming it as useful, whether that use is as a resource, a place to get a few laughs, or whatever your site’s point may be. The bottom line is that it serves a function and is good at doing so. They feel that your site is of merit and other people should experience it.
For this reason, links that are obtained without building relationships and credibility are most likely useless. Paid links, spammy blog comments, and other black-hat SEO methods go against the very core of the link model. They do not tout quality, in fact, they diminish it. So quality link building will build upon other legitimate business practices.
By being aware of these three building blocks, you can implement a successful online marketing campaign. Keeping credibility, relationships and links in mind while you try to build up your website will ensure that your focus doesn’t waiver and that your content creation stays consistent.
This will also open the doors to keep you in the most current conversations in your industry so that you can conceptualize exciting new guerilla marketing techniques.
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