WebMaster Solutions
Internet
Success
Marketing Plan Outline
We've
all heard that content is king. That is very
true. But marketing is the crown prince of the
net-- and must not be neglected. Here we provide
a marketing plan which focuses on the needs of
the small business or home office.
Before
getting into the step by step free marketing
plan, you should ensure you have done a bit of
business planning as well. What are you selling?
If you are still working on that, try our list
of affiliates or our business
plan page.
But
you came here for the marketing plan... so here
it is...
#1.
Produce a quality site that will market itself.
Maybe this is easier said than done. But if you
don't do this you shouldn't be sitting around
dreaming about making money with your WebPages.
There is real money to be made from WebPages,
but only if you are determined to produce
something of quality. This is critical to
marketing. If you market without quality you
will get visitors, but most will leave within
seconds. If you need ideas for a quality site
see our business
plan.
-- But the idea is simple. Build a site that
focuses on your customers.
#2.
Begin your marketing by using free services.
Free services will not make you rich. But they
will very likely generate a stream of income
that will give you a real confidence boost. This
will allow you to calculate how much income you
can make with more traffic and will let you
determine your adverting budgets. One free
marketing site we recommend is LinkOpp
-- Many other free services and free techniques
are on our completely
free marketing services page.
#3. Get spidered by the search engines. Be sure
to pick the right metadata for your page. Many
search engines will not index your site at all
unless you have good meta tags. Specifically:
- Add a descriptive page title to each page of
your site. Your WebPage software probably has an
easy way to add this title. In the actual HTML
code it will be located between the
<HEAD></<HEAD> tags in the tags
<TITLE><TITLE/>. Try to use
descriptive terms that will be a close match to
what your customers will be searching for.
-
Add keywords. Like the title, these are
important. Check out what we have done by
viewing the source of this page. Look in the
header section of the source code of the page
for the work 'KEYWORDS'. The best keywords will
be ones that match the content of the page. Try
not to repeat keywords, it will likely have you
considered a search engine 'spammer'.
-
Add a page description. This is like the title
or keywords, but is meant to be a short sentence
or two. Again, view the source code of this page
to see how it is done.
If you need help with HTML, visit our Webmaster
Services page.
#4. Don't start a marketing newsletter. There
are too many others doing this. It is very
likely that your new entry would not be worth
the effort. If you have your heart set on being
a publisher and you think you have a niche, then
go for it, but we highly recommend checking out
other newsletters first.
- I hate to sound like a curmudgeon on this, so
please allow me to say this another way: On the
issue of publishing an e-mail newsletter, in my
view it is best not to, except in the cases
where it is best to.
--
O.K., that is still a bit flippant. Sorry. But
there is a point to be made. If you have a
passion, a hobby, an area of expertise, some
knowledge that you are going to write about,
then by all means put it in an e-zine. I'll be
glad to be one of your subscribers, and 1000's
may beat a path to your door to sign up.
--
But if you have no intention to offer any
service or value, just advertisements inviting
people to sign up for your dozen favorite MLM
programs, don't bother. You will be wasting your
time and the electrons used to send your e-zine
around the globe.
--
So, the secret is this: Publish something of
value and you can have a great way of referring
folks to more value on your website. Set your
own schedule and stick to it. Ask your web page
readers to sign up for the newsletter. I
recommend using e-groups to host your
newsletter. For more info see our "write an
e-zine" page.
--
If, after all of that, you would like to start
an e-zine, see our page of tips on how
to do it.
#5.
Be sure to ask your visitors to bookmark your
site. Remind them that they can do that by
hitting "CTRL-D".
#6.
Use professionally designed banners. We have
never seen a free banner site or home-made
banner we like. There are just too many
professionals designing banners. You will
eventually need one to work something up for
your site. There are several available-- one of
the best is Banner.com: Need
A Banner? Buy A Banner.com. They are an
award winning banner design team.
#7.
Get in global business directories. For example,
the Atnetworld.com
Global Directory -- your information
destination.
Atnetworld.com is the ultimate on- line Yellow
Pages with e-commerce, databases, and links to
over 60 million listings. Not only is Atnetworld
the most complete directory where businesses in
the USA can list on the Internet, it's also a
world wide directory.
#8.
Study. Never stop studying. We will always have
new items for you to study here. Please check
back frequently.
#9.
Swap links. Contact other webmasters to swap
links. Do this by a "linkletter" which
outlines why you want to swap links and gives
your URL so the other webmaster can see your
site. The best linkletter will indicate that you
have already placed their link on your page.
-- I hope I am one of the first people you send
your linkletter too. Address it to linkletter@webpageprofits.com
#10.
Be sure to add your URL on your stationary and
any off-net advertising you do.
#11.
When you are ready, craft your press release.
#12.
Become an active participant in discussion
groups. Do not spam USENET or mailing lists, but
if you become an active participant in
discussion groups and mailing lists and have a
good signature file you will generate additional
traffic.
#13.
Write articles about what you know and submit
them to e-zines. As you review the many articles
on the webpageprofits site check out the
signature blocks at the bottom of each. The
articles you write should contain the same type
of signature block. Doing so can establish you
as a professional and can help generate
additional traffic.
#14.
Write e-books. E-books are preferred by many
modern readers. Write about anything you are an
expert on. Be sure to include hot links to your
site and you will generate traffic.
#15.
Use autoresponders to serve your visitors.
Configure several autoresponders to provide
valuable information to your visitors. This will
keep them coming back to you. For a free
autoresponder visit getresponse
#15.
Sign up with professional online marketing
companies. There is no getting around it, to get
professional results you must hire the big guns.
If you are on a budget you can start slow till
you start seeing results. There are several that
we suggest, including:
Market
Suite.
They will start by a free submission of your
site to over 1,500 search engines &
directories, but it is the pay services you
should ask them about.
That's
it for now. Remember to keep your content fresh
and never stop marketing.
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