Internet Marketing On A Budget

By Thad Collins
Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Establishing a web presence on the internet is based on two factors when you are on a budget, your willingness to devote time to your marketing efforts, and knowing the true facts of what really works in the world of internet marketing. There are many site promotion companies that promise to generate traffic for your site, but if you are a business on the Internet, you want more than just hits; you want potential customers to visit your site. The techniques discussed below will give you an understanding of what is working on the Internet, and bring those customers to you if properly applied.

The fact is, that increased visitors to you site may increase its ranking on some search engines, but would you rather have 10,000 visitors from traffic generating sources just clicking through so they can generate traffic to their own site, or 1,000 visitors who are seriously interested in the products or service that you are offering. There are many avenues available to the smart net marketer on a budget if they understand who they are aiming their marketing efforts towards.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO requires you to seriously reduce your web content into a few sentences and keywords. Getting a high ranking on a search engine is more vital than most marketers will admit, and the common mistake made by netrepreneurs is concerning keyword listing. The myth being that you list every word with the slightest importance in the “meta-tag” section, with main keywords being continuously repeated. The fact is, that most search engines will consider this spamming, and will generally reject your submission. The site I am promoting, consumermortgagereduction.com uses only essential keywords, and I do not repeat any of them more than three times.

There are a lot of search engine submission sites on the web, and these are great for initially announcing your site, but the best way to get high ranking is to visit the few engines that still accept “free” submission, and submit directly to them. The purpose of the search engine is to find new site on the web and catalog them, and they generally search one another for new site listings. A high ranking on a few free search engine will get you listed on the engines that are “pay for inclusion,” this may require a bit more time, but it can save you money in the long run.

The best source for increasing traffic to your site is article submission; I have an article I wrote entitled “Searching The Internet Without Search Engines” that was picked up by hundreds of web marketing and advice sites. To be successful using this type of marketing requires repetition, and writing on topics you are familiar with. These articles do not have to be sales pitches for your site, just information relating to topic you are familiar with, and most services that use your article will have a “bio” section that you can use to discuss your site.

The object of article submission is for the sources that use your articles to become familiar with your writing, and feel that you have something to say about a particular topic. It does not hurt to mention your website in the article, but do not use the article to simply sale your website. If you look at my site (http://www.consumermortgagereduction.com), you will see that we provide Equity Acceleration and Mortgage Auditing Business Opportunities, but after ten years of marketing various websites, I feel that I can help the next netrepreneur avoid the mistakes and pitfall that I have made, so that’s why I submit article on promotions and marketing.

Newsgroups have been around since the early development of the web, and they are still considered an excellent source for people to share ideas. Posting to a newsgroup about your business is basically the same as writing articles, it should not be a blatant sales letter, but instead it should be an invitation for potential customers to visit your site. Newsgroups encompass a variety of general subjects, so no matter what type of business you operate; there is a newsgroup to post your message to.

These groups have some basic rules, it is important that you visit the groups before posting, and find out if your content is suitable for inclusion in the group. Some newsgroups are monitored by a group moderator, and posting unrelated content to these groups can cause you to be “flamed” and banned from posting by members of the group. Nevertheless, newsgroups still remain a good source for discussing topics you are proficient in, while getting members who are interested in your business to visit your site.

The last tool I will discuss on marketing on a budget is classified marketing, and this tool can be extremely effective if used correctly. There are a large amount of sites that provide classified advertising for free, and an effective classified campaign requires that you develop headings that will attract the attention of the potential visitor to your site. The majority of free classified sites restrict the number of words you can use, generally to twenty-five or thirty words, so write copy that will get your message out with the fewest word s possible. Remember that these sites receive a great deal of listings, so be sure to post to them often, and change your heading and message to keep it fresh.

Effective website promotion on a budget can be an elusive goal to achieve if you fail to use the right tools effectively get your message out. Some of these techniques will provide you with instant increases in traffic, while other may take weeks or months to show results. The techniques listed above are intended to relay your experience in a given industry, and as an expert in your field of business, these sources can accomplish more than any paid advertising can achieve.

About The Author
Thad Collins is the owner of CMRS which provides equity acceleration business programs to entrepreneurs, you can visit the site at (http://www.consumermortgagereduction.com)