Succeeding in Internet Marketing or SEO involves a variety of activities – there’s no ONE magic task or program that works.  Like any other marketing, it involves a team effort.  The “team” being the following…

1) Content

If you’ve done any Internet marketing in the past you may have heard the term that “Content is King”.  Basically, when it comes to the Internet, “content” (also known as words) rule the roost.  The reason for that is because that’s how communication takes place on the Internet (for the most part).

What I mean is that the Internet is basically a collection of machines.  Machines that follow rules set up by programmers.  Machines that “read words”.  Those words being the words that are typed in to the search engines and the words on website pages.

If you’re searching for “davie fl dentist” you will get websites that have the words “davie fl dentist” as well as phrases that the search engines think are related (like “ft lauderdale dentist”, etc.).

So, the game then is to find the keywords that people are typing in and then putting those phrases on the website pages where they need to be (according to the rules made by those programmers).  When that happens, then the search engines can match the search with the website.

Of course, there are 200 rules and just putting words on a page is not enough but it’s the basics and it’s where every single website owner who is marketing their website must begin.  Otherwise, all the other rules won’t make a difference.

2) Conversion

There are many websites out there that bring in visitors, lots and lots of visitors.  But, what’s the point of all those visitors if there are no sales or if the conversion of visitors to customers is very low?  If your website was a storefront and all you got were lots of visitors but very little or no sales then all you would end up with is a very dirty floor in your store.

So, once the visitors start coming to your website, you want to know…

a) where are they going?

b) what are they doing on each page?

c) what are they searching for?

d) are they doing what you want them to do on each page?

Internet marketing involves analyzing these factors on each website page every month to find out how can those pages be tweaked, how can the conversions be better?

Ignoring this part of Internet marketing means that all the hard work you put into optimizing your website will just stay shelved.  In other words, all that hard work won’t work.  Why?  Because optimizing the website, adding content, researching the keywords, all of that is to please the search engines’ rules.  All of that is to help the search engines to find your website.  But to convert customers, now you have to please them.  So, navigation through the site, helping the customers find what they’re looking for easily, all that is a vital part of converting those visitors into customers and increasing your sales.

3) Collaboration

Oh, if I had a dollar for every client I’ve managed who just wants to hire me to market their website and they don’t want to be bothered – I could get myself a very nice expensive bottle of wine.  (And believe me, I need that wine after arguing with these clients!).

I know, I know – you look at shows like Mad Men and you see how clients just walk in and the “team” of advertisers presents them with ideas and does all the work for them.  Creating billboards, television commercials and newspaper advertisements, etc.   Yeah, that works great with traditional marketing but Internet marketing is way too liquid for that.  Internet marketing changes every single day (at least it should).

Here’s what I mean…

I have a client who is a local dentist.  I have been begging her to send me information about her practice for almost a year now.  She has a website but it only has the most basic information on it.

Recently, I did a little search for her on some local programs like Yelp and Foursquare, Facebook, etc.  Anyway, I found several coupons and other “service specials” on those sites.  Now, why didn’t she send me that information?  When I asked her – she said she didn’t think of it.  Even though I’ve asked many times.  Somehow, the connection is just not getting through.

Whatever is happening in your business, it has to show on the website as well.  Otherwise, it seems as if the website is abandoned (and to the search engines, if the website is abandoned, then the business must be also).

In Conclusion

So, to have a successful Internet marketing campaign and get your moneys worth from the marketing you’re paying someone to do (if that’s what you’re doing) – add content to your site on a regular basis, study the conversion research and collaborate with your webmarketer.  Believe me, it’s worth your while!!