As fast as the world spins the changes in online business marketing seem to happen. There are a few constants that stay the same though…

Online Business Marketing Constants

1. You need a strategy. Like all marketing your online presence shouldn’t be based on a hit and miss or scattergun approach.

A sound strategy is based around your market. One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is trying to think of the market in terms of social demographics. Age, sex, location etc rather than common problem. The people in your market all have one thing in common – the reason they need you.

2. You need to own your assets. Unlike in the bricks and mortar premises of businesses where there are premises to lease in place of owning your own. Online when you are using some one else’s property such as social networking sites, web 2.0, you do not have any lease or control. Too many businesses are putting all their eggs in one basket online which is a problem if they don’t own the basket.

3. You need a clear call to action. The best websites are direct response marketing tools. They aren’t brochures and nor should they be. What do you do as a searcher when you land on a business brochure online that is all about the business. Yawn, click away? As opposed to a website that answers your question and gives you what you were searching for. When they ask you to click through to another page or sign up to get the answer to your prayers you very often do.

Basic Online Business Marketing Strategy

Consider what you are trying to achieve.

Why are you going online in the first place. Because everyone else is, isn’t really an answer! It is certainly not a starting point for a strategy.

Are you local or global?

Know who your market is.

Know what your market is really looking for and why they haven’t found it yet – what is the gap everyone else is missing.

Know what your market does online – where they go, how they interact and what they interact with. Know who the movers and shakers in their online world are.

Know what you want them to do when they get to you – what action you want them to take.

Leverage the above information into a strategy.

Online Marketing Strategy Development

Your website needs to be optimised to the searchers your market do. So you need to build your strategy on research. Competitive market analysis and keyword research. Who is doing what well and how can you do it better.

Plan the sitemap for your website. A clear, funnel, path, map for visitors. A simple navigation and flow to your site so it makes sense to searchers and search engines alike.

Get the content. Good market based, targeted, problem solving optimised content. One purpose per page. Remembering through this process that you can rank every page of your website not just your home page. You can drive SEO strategy so searchers land on the page most relevant to them rather than your home.

Plan how regular, relevant content will be added. How it will be syndicated to leverage. What social media and social networking sites need to link into, connect with and syndicate your content.

Build It and They Will Come

Unfortunately no! When you have built your assets and begun your syndication to other channels online you need to ramp up your rankings with SEO.

SEO can drive targeted traffic to your website. It is an essential part of an online business marketing strategy because it is what gets your website seen online.

How you fit your website, SEO and social media together goes back to one thing – getting more qualified leads from your market – which is based on everything you know about your market.

Online business marketing is about bringing your market to you cost effectively.