Internet Marketing 101
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Whether you’re a Maryland divorce lawyer or California plastic surgeon, chances are you have a website chock full of information regarding your firm; information about what you do, a portfolio of past work, or perhaps even a blog. But what really sets your site apart from the hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of other competing websites?
As more and more people are hopping online instead of turning to the yellow pages, internet marketing can play a vital role in the success (or lack thereof) of your business. And whether or not you outsource your marketing or keep it in-house, here are the three things you should be doing to brand yourself and create a noticeable presence online.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization refers to a strategy aimed at increasing a website’s rankings in major search engines (e.g. Google) and subsequently website traffic. While there are different theories and approaches on how to do SEO, most experts will agree a well-rounded SEO campaign should includes a variety of factors such as content generation (writing quality content and publishing it on various blogs and other websites), linkbuilding (embedded links that point to your website), and social media. Click here to learn more about search engine optimization.
Social Media – Getting involved on various social networking sites (think Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is a great and highly effective way to promote your business and get traffic to your website. In addition, social media gives you the opportunity to engage and communicate with users (read: potential customers) and positions yourself as an expert in your field or area of specialization (what business wouldn’t want that?).
Pay-Per-Click – You know when you run a search on Google, you have a list of results along with a handful of links on the right side; these are paid ads (also known as PPC ads), so companies pay a certain amount to show up in those paid ads when a certain term is searched. The benefit of PPC is, whereas it can take months to see result from SEO, PPC can deliver results and traffic to your website immediately. Since PPC can be a complex process, it’s recommended you seek the help of a professional if you’re looking to get a PPC campaign up and running.