Internet Marketing for Beginners: 3 Things You Must Know

If you’re looking for a crash course on Internet Marketing for Beginners, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get down to business and talk about something that can change the bottom line of your business!

I remember about 5 years ago when I was recovering from the failure of my first business and going into venture number two the terms Internet Marketing were becoming two of the most popular buzzwords.

Every social media platform was filled with links to articles about the new craze. There were also tons of events all over town, and of course a new breed of experts were born, the Internet Marketers.

Truthfully, if I had known anything about Internet Marketing in business number one, it would have never failed and I possibly wouldn’t have lost my retirement nest egg.  

But then again, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have discovered my true purpose. I guess that saying is true, “When a door closes, a window opens.”

Internet Marketing for Beginners – The Vital Facts

If you learn anything about Internet Marketing I want it to be these three very important vital facts:

1. It’s not as complicated as you make it out to be. Yes, you can learn about it if you would only stop creating mental obstacles against it.

2. Internet Marketing will fill in revenue gaps and grow your business.

3. If you don’t learn about Internet Marketing, you will at some point in your business fall prey to an Internet marketing snake oil salesman.

Everything is more complicated when we put up mental obstacles. You’re just assuming Internet Marketing is too difficult for you to leverage for your business. The mindset to have is not what Internet marketing means – but instead what does it mean to your business model?

Not everything makes sense for your business, so based on knowing your target market what should you be doing?

If you have a consumer driven business chances are you should be at the very least focusing on the following pieces: Growing Your Facebook Presence – Facebook is a very consumer driven platform and it’s not for kids.

The average age of a Facebook user is 33 to 57 years old. Allocating a paid campaign in your Internet Marketing strategy even if its small to grow your likes is very smart.

You don’t want random people to like your Facebook page, which has zero value. Instead you want engaged users. Once they like your page, you have developed a captive audience that you can market to anytime you want.

If you’re looking for a great resource to learn more about Facebook, check out Amy Porterfield’s website.

Using Google AdWord Campaigns – Chances are you’re not ranking for your search. What I mean by that is what people type in when they’re looking for what you sell. The searcher will seldom go to page 2 – so if you’re not on page 1 your business is irrelevant.

If you take out Google AdWords for your search you can place your business at the top of your search. In other words if you can’t get it organically – then pay for it.

Growing Your List and Using Email Marketing – If you grow your list – you grow your business! You should be constantly staying in contact with customers you’ve already sold to.

Use email marketing as an effort for cross selling, reminding them about all you do, and just basically overall staying in touch and top of mind of your customers. In addition, if you’re in a position that you make sales based on pipeline activity, email marketing can assist in reinforcing your business messages and perhaps converting leads to sales.

If you’re using your email marketing efforts as a way to educate and create helpful tips and information for your customers and prospects, it can be an extremely powerful marketing tool. You should be constantly focused on growing your list at all times! It’s absolutely crucial to integrate into your communication asking for an email address.

Your list is the most powerful asset of your business and if you’re not using yours – you’re literally walking away from potential profits.

So what can you do today? Right this very minute to get your Internet marketing efforts starting off in a very big way?

Internet Marketing for Beginners: Let’s simplify it!

Mobile Check – First, take out your mobile and type your website into the browser. How does your website look on your handheld? If you say great, that’s awesome! That’s one very important thing checked off the list. 

Remember most visitors will interact with your website via mobile and not only that but Google is delivering serious sucker-punches to websites that aren’t mobile friendly. If yours looks like crap remember this is what your visitor experiences, get something done about it.

This should be first on your To-Do list. Your website is crucial to your Internet Marketing strategy!

Conduct a Search Audit – Okay next step is to see who comes up on page one for your search query. What do you think someone would type to Google if they were looking for your type of business?

Make sure you’re logged out of your Gmail or Google account and conduct this search. Are you in it? Page 1 is really all that matters in this search, the searcher will rarely go past it. So if you’re on page 1 excellent!!! If you’re not then you’ll need to add a search engine strategy to your To-Do list.

Competitor Analysis – So if you’re not in the search, who is? You should make a list of the competitors that come up in the search query. Even if you are on the first page of the search you should still know this information.

It’s also a great idea to take a look at the websites of the competitors that rank in this search. The reality is, they’re getting business you aren’t! Take a look at how they’re articulating their business.

What do they have up on you besides ranking? Do you see any areas whereas you have something over them? What is it? Additionally, look at the paid Google ads. Are any of your competitors paying for advertising?

You should also list this information out. If your competitors are this search and even paying for ads you have to come up with a plan to be there too! Add this to your To-Do list.

If you’re unable to handle doing the things you have on your To-Do list then by all means be smart enough to hire someone to do it for you. However, a word of caution, most people out there that sell Internet services aren’t very honest.

They can and WILL take advantage of your lack of education. They LOVE it because most business owners are uneducated and at their mercy. So even if you are going to hire someone to get your Internet marketing strategy going – it’s still a great idea to be somewhat educated.

If you’re educated you’ll get ripped off a whole lot less! Get started with your Internet marketing efforts and watch your profit margins expand!

For further learning on Internet Marketing for Beginners check out this great post by Neil Patel.