Web Marketing: How Do I Start with Online Marketing?

I received this question via my Twitter account today:

@the_rich_brooks I have created a website but have no idea where to start with web marketing. I have a blog and yahoo group.
-- @livestrongcjm

Thanks for the question, Chad. Through your Twitter page I found your Vigor of Life Web site. I have some general and some specific advice.

General

At flyte we practice Holistic Web Marketing, an integrated approach to online marketing that includes search engine optimization, email marketing, blogging, social media optimization and more. In other words, you can't put all your eggs in one basket. I've seen too many people spend a lot of money on search engine optimization, but their Web site isn't set up to convert that traffic to business. Here's an article I wrote on holistic Web marketing.

Specific

1. Improve your search engine visibility. Your home page title tag is currently "Vigor of Life." That's great if someone is searching for your business name, but how about the greater amount of people who are searching for your products or services but have never heard of you? A better title might be, "Personal Fitness Training: Your Exercise and Diet Coach." I say might because I haven't done a keyword analysis, so I don't know which keywords might drive the best quality traffic to your site.
   
   Title tags are just one piece of the puzzle; you'll also need keyword rich headers, body copy and intra-site links. To further improve your search engine visibility you'll need to get more incoming links.
2. Start an email newsletter. I'm guessing a lot of your prospects might take some time to make a buying decision. During that period they may forget about you. Stay front of mind with a monthly opt-in ezine. To overcome inertia, use some email bait, like a free article for subscribers: "10 Ways to Increase Your Vitality and Stay Healthy."
3. Improve your blog. I'm not a big fan of Blogger, but if it works for you, keep it. However, the way it's floating in an iframe is a little confusing. You could also benefit from adding categories and tags. If you haven't yet, take a look at my free article (with email subscription--see how important that email bait is?) The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make.
4. Improve your Web site to increase conversions. Get rid of those GoDaddy notices by upgrading your hosting account. The first 9 or so links on your site are for GoDaddy, not you!
   
   Be clearer on what you're offering. "We change lives!" could be the slogan of a personal coach, a headhunter or a pet adoption agency.
   
   I'm glad you have a call-to-action on the home page, but there should also be one at the bottom of every page on the site, and it should be more specific, i.e., "Get your free training consultation today."
   
   Use testimonials with real names (whenever possible) to prove your value to visitors.

There's a bunch more things you can be doing, but hopefully this quick list is helpful.

If you have any Web marketing questions, including search engine optimization, email marketing, blogging or social media, you can leave a comment below or tweet me.

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for Small Business

Comments

[Reeta]

I want to upgrade my static site - it's served me well but has grown beyond static capability. Last week I added a wordpress blog in a separate section to get a feel for blogging.

I'm choosing between joomla and wordpress but know very little about either. I want to blog, allow more interaction and also have information pages.

Can you suggest which of these would be the better way to go to bring my site out of the dark ages? I am looking for ease of maintenance together with control over SEO related stuff in the Meta's and as much functionality as possible so it gives me room to grow.

Thanks very much, Reeta

[Rich Brooks]

Reeta,

I'd need to know more to give you a good answer. However, we currently use both Joomla and WordPress for CMS.

I find WP is easier to use and update, in part b/c of Joomla's steeper learning curve. However, Joomla is more scalable and is really good when it comes to membership driven Web sites.

Bottom line is you can make either of them work for you, but if you don't have a huge site or don't need membership, WP might be the way to go.