Internet marketing tools bring in business; it’s that simple.  The sometimes-challenging part can lie with how one uses those marketing tools to bring the business in.  Any savvy on-line business owner absolutely must have a working grasp of the IT, coupled with the psychology behind how Internet users think–knowing their needs and buying patterns–as well as researching, tracking and getting ahead of technological trends.

Here we’ll cover some necessities any website should incorporate in order to increase online traffic, maximize conversion rate and generate revenue.

Your Website:

A company’s website is the core of a business’ online presence.  The key is to develop a site that can be easily found during a search which provides relevant information, fosters personal engagement and develops the kind of trust and confidence consumers, wholeheartedly, appreciate.

1:  Make contact information visible and accessible~

Contact information can play a key role in gaining higher rankings in search.  Just make sure the contact information for your business is prominently displayed (ideally, on each page) including full local address, with directions, if applicable, and not using a P.O. Box address, if possible.

Additionally, an email address and links to social media channels are crucial for enabling consumers to contact your business 24/7!  By featuring your social media channels, your site will ignite engagement and enable visitors to view a continuous stream of meaningful and personal information about your business.

2:  Incorporate Live Chat~

Live chat allows for your business to interact with your visitors in real-time.  Potential customers gain valuable insight into your product or service; and it’s an excellent venue and opportunity to build your visitors’ confidence.

3:  Utilize an appealing, easy-to-use interface~

Eye-catching color schemes in addition to seamless navigation are crucial since they will reflect the professionalism of how you handle your business.   Pay close attention to your site’s text and visuals’ formatting since graphics, videos and other content can produce sluggish load time which can be a conversion killer.

4:  Use dominant and searchable keywords on the front and backend~

As seen on MMT Advertising, Search engines ‘reward’ web pages with the right amount of ranking factors or ‘indicators’.  A few factors that should be targeted, regarding search-engine ranking success, would include, but not be limited to, the following:

Content:

** research and use keywords and phrases people might use to find your content

** provide abundant, quality content

** engage your visitors to keep them reading, as opposed to quickly exiting

HTML:

** make sure HTML title tags contain keywords related to page topics

** use meta description tags which depict what the pages are about

** create headlines and subheads that use header tags with relevant keywords

Design:

** search engines should be able to ‘crawl’ the sites’ pages

** the site needs to load quickly

** URLs need to be short and contain significant keywords regarding page topics

5:  Be mobile-friendly~

Surprisingly, a vast majority of websites are not mobile-optimized; and they should be.  A 2012 Local Search Association survey revealed that 32%, or almost 1/3, of their respondents chose mobile phones or a tablet, instead of a computer, to look up information for a product or service.

To not ensure that one’s website can be accessed on platforms other than a computer’s desktop is like intentionally blocking traffic to your site.

6:  Track results~

By properly tracking website traffic, you can glean insight on how many customers visit your site, where they are from, what keywords they’re searching for and what specific content is meaningful.  One can, then, gain clarity on how to further enhance the website’s visibility and performance.

Your website’s presence does make all the difference!

Karen ‘s knowledge about internet marketing continues to prove insightful and practical.  In addition to writing she is a retired educator from Nebraska.

Choosing the right Content Management System (CMS) for your blog, business, or affiliate website may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. These days managing the appearance of your site is easier than ever.

With thousands of free templates to choose from, plenty of useful add-ons, and support staff all over the world, most entrepreneurs can be up and running within minutes without spending a dime.

Save Some Overhead – Fire Your Graphic Designer

In the early days of internet business graphic designers made an enviable amount of money by designing websites in html. The high price tag came with good reason, html can be challenging to update without causing upsets elsewhere in your site. These days, however, cosmetic changes to your site, graphics, and overall design can be done in minutes – with just a simple drag and click. No graphic designer needed.

Choosing the Right CMS for Your Business – What to Look For

There’s a CMS that’s right for every business need, from small storefronts to large enterprises, there’s a CMS that suits them all. What’s nice to know is many of the most powerful and competitive options are also free.

Start by looking for something that’s open source with a large body of contributors who are passionate about building a powerful, user-friendly CMS. Oftentimes this means you’ll get regular updates and a trustworthy group of support should you need assistance. For the sake of discussion I’ll cover three of the most popular choices ranging from easiest to use to most challenging.

A Quick Comparison of the Top CMS Options

• WordPress – By far the most popular CMS available today, Wikipedia reports over 60 million users all over the world rely on WordPress to power their site. A great deal of functionality is packaged within a very user-friendly environment that makes updating a business site simple and less time consuming.

There are thousands of themes available, some are free and the more professional styles come at a reasonable fee. It’s important to know the difference between WordPress.Com and WordPress.Org, however, the former is for the free hosting of a blog and the latter is intended for professional use with your own personal domain name.

• Joomla – The second-most popular CMS in use today, an estimated 30 million downloads have occurred as of March 2012, according to Wikipedia. Joomla offers greater flexibility and power for businesses that demand a reliable method of making updates quickly and easily. Open source in nature, with regular updates and a large support group, Joomla offers a decent alternative for those who are looking to do more than just host a blog.

Rather than being built upon html, like standard templates, which can be full of unnecessary code, Joomla calls upon the Model-View-Controller (MVC) software style in all of its architecture. This is a fantastic option for businesses, such as eCommerce and real estate sites that require more oomph from their CMS.

• Drupal – If you’re looking to get into eCommerce, build a decidedly complex site, or host a large community, then Drupal may be the right choice for your business needs. Bear in mind, however, that this powerful tool requires some expertise to get the full functionality – it is a power tool, after all. Drupal can handle it all, from the smallest of blog to the most security-conscious of agency.

Though some study and skill is necessary to master the Drupal CMS, the end result is well worth the effort. Like all open source projects, Drupal offers an extensive body of support as well as frequent updates, and with each new release it becomes easier to use. If you like to feel like a true master of your domain, Drupal may be the CMS option you’ve been searching for.

Where’s a Newbie to Start? The Ideal CMS for Beginner

The best CMS for your business needs is ultimately a personal decision, but if you’re looking to get your feet wet and expand from there then WordPress is likely your best option. WordPress offers fantastic practice in learning how to make a website for free. Then, once you have more confidence and technical expertise you can make the leap towards Joomla or Drupal.

Freelance writer Rick Mercado loves working as an online marketer because it allows him the ability to work from the comfort of his own home, or his local coffee shop with the urge strikes.  A fan of the outdoors, Rick loves the freedom that his work-at-home lifestyle affords because it gives him plenty of time to explore his neighborhood of Halifax, Nova Scotia.  When he isn’t working, researching and writing, he can be found pursuing his dream of learning to be a pilot.

Procrastination is in many ways the blogger’s worst enemy. You haven’t uploaded a new post in a long time and have a small window to do it in, so you sit down hoping to write a few blog posts only to find yourself browsing around YouTube and watching funny videos of cats. Sure, those cats are often hilarious, but they aren’t going to make your blog any more successful, appease your impatient readers or earn you any money. This is a problem faced by many of us and it’s one of the biggest time (and therefore) money wasters that we deal with on a daily basis.

In fact, I’d say that there’ a good chance you’re procrastinating right now. Perhaps you sat down planning to write an article for your site, but then got distracted while you were browsing through the research. You maybe read a couple of unrelated articles, checked your email, then went back online to ‘close the tab’. Maybe you were just about to when you saw this article title and though ‘just this one more article’.

Well it’s time to stop, and fortunately I know just how to get you back to work. Below I’m going to share some strategies that can make it much easier to work through your to-do list, and by the end of it you should be back to work and have stopped putting it off. Then, whenever you find your eyes and mind starting to wander, you can just apply these same strategies again…

Step 1: Create a To Do List

The first thing you need to do is to outline exactly what’s required of you for today. By doing that, you will be able to better plan your day and you won’t find yourself putting things off because you’re not sure what’s best to do next. Make this detailed too so that nothing vague is on that list. For instance, don’t just write ‘write blog post’, but instead write the title and subject of that post. This way you won’t lose time deliberating on what precisely to write and you can disengage that part of your brain to just work through the tasks directly.

Step 2: Start With the Fun

You’d think that it would make more sense to start with the most boring or the largest task on your to-do list first would make sense, but in reality that’s often a mistake. Instead, try starting with the job that’s mot fun or at least most bearable. That way, you won’t dread getting started quite so much and you’ll be less likely to carry on putting it off. But then, once you’ve done the fun task, you’ll find that the whole list looks much shorter and more bearable.

And if you don’t have a fun or a bearable task on there? Well then find a way to make the jobs more interesting. If you need to do some writing for your blog, then you should try and make the posts you write relate directly to something that’s currently on your mind. Likewise, if you were putting off going to the gym, you could make it more fun by using new exercises or making a challenging routine to push yourself. However you do it, if you make the job fun and challenging then it won’t be so likely to feel like work and it will be easier to stay focussed on it. This is an example of working with your brain. There are more here.

Step 3: Don’t Check Your E-Mail… Or Anything

So you have your to-do list and you’re raring to get started with work. What do you do now? If the answer you were about to say was to ‘check your e-mail’ then that’s what you’ve been doing wrong. Checking your e-mail at the start of your ‘shift’ will mean you’re not focussing on your work right from the word go, and will create too many opportunities to get even more distracted (by thinking about what’s been written, or by writing a response). Instead then, make checking your e-mail a ‘reward’ and use the same attitude for making tea or doing anything else that distracts you from your main job (and only award yourself one at a time after you’ve done a good amount of work). That way, rather than making tea, checking your email and reading the news and finding you’ve done no work after an hour, you can do one of those things at the end of each hour and find you’ve finished most of your work by the time you’ve done all three.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source

John Miller is an expert at social media marketing. Having been in this field for over 10 years, he has sound knowledge of its working. A music lover, he likes listening to his favourite soundtracks in his spare time.