For small businesses in particular, online marketing should focus on generating qualified web traffic on a small, capped budget.
Qualified web traffic relates to the state of mind of a website visitor and the likelihood of them making purchase. Online marketing has two goals: generating visitors and turning them into active customers.
Consider selling your product on eBay and Amazon as well or offering your services on industry-specific directories and resource sites
Here are six small-business online marketing ideas for 2010 to get you going.
1. Start a mini, online, multi-channel marketing strategy
In light of the first internet marketing goal, to generate qualified traffic, look at other online platforms which already serve your target market. Hand in hand with selling on your own site, consider selling your product on eBay and Amazon as well or offering your services on industry-specific directories and resource sites.
2. Start working on organic search-engine traffic
Search-engine traffic is the holy grail because it's effectively free and highly qualified. If you've just started, don't expect to generate much traffic any time soon, though, but you have to start somewhere.
If you're new to search-engine optimisation (generally known as SEO), you could start by downloading Google's guide for website owners.
3. Upload your products or services to Google Products
A free service from Google, Google Merchant is a place for businesses to upload a data feed about your products or services. Under some types of user searches, Google will include products or services from this channel in its search results.
Because the traffic is coming from the search engine, visitors are highly qualified and therefore highly likely to buy from you.
4. Register your business with Google Local
Google is offering local businesses a chance to register their business address and phone number in its local listings. When a web user searches for a keyword together with a location, for example 'warrington plumber', the search results will sometimes include listings from Google Local displayed on a map.
Again, the nature of the traffic means it's qualified.
5. Start building your social profile
Traffic from certain types of social media can generate high levels of qualified traffic and buzz. To get your business out there in the public eye, consider contributing your time and knowledge.
Offer to write guest posts on quality blogs, participate in the conversation across Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers and Linkedin Answers and make connections with other industry-related businesses through Twitter.
6. Start using email marketing sooner rather than later
Newsletters are fantastic to keep in touch with your customer base and target market and to communicate promotions, offers and new services. The vast majority of shopping carts or content management system limited or no newsletter support, so consider using one of the many third-party newsletter web-based services. Some, such as Mail Chimp, even offer a free plan.
