Web Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Web Marketing For Dummies 2nd edition which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com

This book looks at the various ways you can promote your business and business website and seems more aimed at smaller companies. One thing you have to work out in business is first the demographics of your typical customers so you know how to tailor your advertising and then how much does the average customer spend both each time they buy and over their lifetime. This is important because one of the ways you can grow your company is through pay per click ads and these have different search terms auctioned off to the highest bidder usually. There is Google Adsense and Adwords but also other companies who might not provide as much business but are often cheaper.You should also look at your website and if you are starting out and getting a website built don't underestimate the cost and the variety of professionals you will probably have to hire to get it built. Consider this the average person spends 4 seconds before he decides whether or not he is staying on that site or not. You have to make sure your website catches his attention in just that 4 seconds. This is called landing page optimization. Another idea is looking at award winning websites to see what they do right and then copying them. Two websites that feature these kinds of sites are http://webbyawards.com & http://webawards.org. You can also promote your site often for free. Two sites that offer this and have free options are http://copromote.com & http://prfree.com. You might also try promoting on social media and one of the more minor sites mentioned is http://yub.com & also there is a social networks directory at http://linknrank.com. In promoting your business you need to be creative and minimize spending or at least don't spend what you can't afford. Request testimonials from customers and have Facebook and Twitter like buttons on your website. You should have a blog separate to your website and can usually get a free one which you can link to your website. Request satisfied customer's email addresses and send out a newsletter and don't forget by law there must be an opt out option on the email newsletter for people to unsubscribe. I am sure you can see this is a really good book and I have only covered a tiny fraction of what is in it.