Fundamental Tools All Internet Marketers Must Have – Part 1
As your studies will reveal, there are some basic tools that will become essential components in the efforts of any successful Internet marketing plan. Laying this solid foundation means you do not necessarily have to reinvent the wheel with each new campaign, although you should always be prepared to tweak things a bit to fit the needs of the product or service that you want to market.
Here are some things to put in place in order to do a great job with your marketing plans.
First, you need to get a web site. Period. No discussions or prevarication allowed. The simple fact of the matter is that people trust entities that they perceive as being “real” businesses. You may be creating your marketing empire from the garage or a spare bedroom, but if you have a real web site that people can visit, bookmark, and share with their friends and family, you will have the look and feel of an established business.
Freelance writers are an excellent example of this sort of thing. While some well paying markets are always looking for new writers, they tend to gravitate toward writers that have a web site, complete with writing samples, contact information, and content that indicates that a true business is working there, not just a sideline or a hobby.
The same is true with marketing. Sure, you can post ads all over the place, but if there is nothing that builds up confidence in the permanency of your business, all those efforts will yield little or no return.
The good news is that web sites are relatively inexpensive these days, and many vendors will even have online tools that will help you create a nice looking site. They supply the outlines, color schemes, and the basic layout. You supply the content and the images and graphics. It is possible to have your web site up and running over a weekend, making it possible to you to use this as a basic part of your marketing plan.
One of the first issues to address in creating a web site is your domain name. One of the most common mistakes people make is try to be quirky or cute with the name. Forget quirky and cute, unless you can combine those qualities with a domain name that is short and easy to remember. Keep in mind that the longer your domain name happens to be, the harder it will be for people to remember it.
Sure, they can always bookmark your domain name in their Favorites, but what good does that do when they are casually talking with a friend about your site? Whether we like to admit it or not, the golden time for word of mouth to occur is during that personal encounter. If the domain name can be rattled off with ease, chances are much better that a new prospect will be directed to your site.
The simple fact is that many people may promise to send a link to someone later, but it gets lost in the shuffle of daily life. Make things easier for you and for people interested in your site. Employ the old Toastmasters counsel of KISS (keep it simple stupid). Life will be better for everyone involved.
I use Name Cheap for my Website Hosting and recommend them to everyone. They have great tools build-in to create your website and cheap, low cost for your website hosting. At the time of this writing, they charge only $3 per month for a basic hosting package. This package is all anyone needs when you are starting out.
FYI: When you get to their website, click on “Web Hosting”, then “Shared Hosting”. Pick the Plan that works for you, but the Basic Plan should work fine.
Thomas Shay
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Disclosure: Some of the Links in my Blog Posts are Affiliate Links. If you purchase products after clicking on the links, I will make a commission on the transaction. As most of the people reading this blog will be in the Internet Marketing Business and/or learning about Internet Marketing, you should know how Affiliate Marketing works.
I always recommend when you are thinking of buying a product, why not buy it through someone's affiliate link. We should all be working together to build our Internet Marketing Businesses, and why not buy from someone we know, like and trust.
