Marketing Your Website

Online Marketing

This is a huge subject, way beyond the scope of this website. And there are dozens of "experts" who are willing to sell you their advice. These are the two best books I have found on the subject:

Make Your Site Sell
Internet Marketing Course

You must get one (or both) of these and study it (them) well. Your success will depend upon it! These guys are both pioneers from the early days of online selling. They have done all the work and made the mistakes for you.

Comparing the two, I would say that Make Your Site Sell is the equivalent of a bachelors degree in online marketing while the Internet Marketing Course is the equivalent of a masters degree.

Make Your Site Sell! (under US$20.00 for the download version) is a well-written, practical guide to creating and marketing a money-making web site. It shows you how to create a site that makes the sale. And it teaches you all the basics of online marketing including how to make your site appealing to the search engines.

The Internet Marketing Course consists of over 1,000 pages in 2 volumes, plus 2 CD-ROMs. It costs much more but it contains a wealth of advanced marketing information. It is literally a complete course in online marketing.

Practically speaking, if you are a beginner start with Make Your Site Sell. Then as your business grows use the advanced knowledge in the Internet Marking Course. There is, of course, some overlap in the information presented. And there is also some disagreement (which just proves that not everything will work for everyone).

Offline Marketing

Just because you have an online business, don't neglect the power of offline marketing. The bible of effective low budget marketing is Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. This best selling guide is highly recommended.

Search Engines

Your site's position in search engine results is extremely important. The online marketing experts all agree that most of your website's traffic will come from the search engines. You have three choices if you wish to attain the coveted "top 20" in search engine results for your keywords:

• Use a free submission service.
• Hire a professional.
• Do it yourself.

Free submission service: It's a cheap and easy way to submit your site to the search engines, but it will not get you high rankings. Search engines differ in the way they like you to submit your site. These services just send the same minimum information to each one. You need to submit to each engine seperately to improve your chances for a high ranking.

Hire a pro: This is the best route, if you can afford it. Use Sumantra Roy's 1stSearchRanking . Mr. Roy is one of the acknowledged experts on search engines. His service costs less than many of his competitors and he guarantees his work. If you don't get those top positions you get your money back! You can't lose.

Do it yourself: By far the best resource I have come across is Sumantra Roy's free Search Engine Masters Course. This course teaches you how to pick keywords and how to use them to maximize your search engine ranking. Click here to get the free course.

You will also need two pieces of software: Site Promoter and Web Position Gold.

Site Promoter (US$149.00) automates the process of submitting your site to the search engines. Using information that you supply, Site Promoter creates submissions for each search engine in exactly the form that maximizes your chances for a high ranking.

After your pages are listed on the search engines, Web Position Gold (US$149.00) checks your page's ranking. It then analyzes your page and offers suggestions on improving your ranking. Sumantra Roy's 1st Search Ranking Newsletter gives you monthly tips on how to maximize your search engine ranking using Web Position Gold.

These two pieces of software work hand in hand to get and keep a high search engine ranking.

(Of course if you are using Site Build It both of these functions are available as part of your annual fee. The cost of these 2 pieces of software alone would all but pay for a year of Site Build It. And then you would still have to pay for web hosting! At the risk of repeating myself, Site Build It is a real bargain.)

OK, you made it to the end of step 6. Now it's time, like the sneaker ad says, to "just do it!"

I wish you success!