23 Things You Need to Know About Online Marketing Now

I‘m regularly asked what a small business has to do to succeed with online marketing. This is, of course, not easy to deal with in five minutes; however, if you want the splatter gun answer, here are some of the things I’ve learned over the last 5 years since I’ve been running Jontus Media.

1. Your website is everything! If it’s down, you’re literally dead in the water so choose your web host really, really carefully. I personally use Enginehosting. They rock.

2. Invest in good website design from the offset. You wouldn’t walk into a store that was half finished, looked like it was in need of serious repair and badly stocked now would you? Your credibility starts with your website

3. Make sure that if you go with a designer for your site that they teach you how to use the site properly.

4. Start a blog as soon as possible using WordPress and host it on your own domain. Install must-have plugins to help you with things like site maps, database backups, etc. Make sure your blog is targeted at your key audience and that all the content you generate is for them and not yourself.

5. Ensure your website is optimized for search engines with a site map, great code, keyword rich title tags and regular content. There are plugins to help you achieve this but you’ll have to generate the content yourself (or get other people to do it for you).

6. Learn how to write blog headlines that grab the attention of your audience. Think more like a sensational news hack than a conservative business person.

7. Create audio and video content to complement text posts. People take in information in different ways and you should appeal to as many prospects as possible.

8. Today’s best practice is tomorrow’s dinosaur. Never stop learning about changes in the industry, new communications channels and so on.

9. Track your data in any way that works for you. Data (or analytics as some prefer to call it) is what will make you make informed decisions about what’s working and what’s not.

10. If something’s not working, change it. We all learn through our mistakes. Even successful online marketers.11. Don’t try and make Facebook or Twitter work for you at the cost of other existing, successful channels.

12. Just because you have 1000 followers on Twitter doesn’t mean you’re generating leads or making sales.

13. Conversely, networking online can help you generate prospects, land you new deals and generally improve your day. Not everyone on the Net is your competitor. There’s a lot of business to go around.

14. You don’t have to be unique or original to succeed online, but it helps if you are. If not, be consistent, dogged and not afraid to learn. The tortoise beat the hare after all.

15. Don’t lose sleep if you don’t manage to get that podcast recorded, video made or blog post written on time. Life gets in the way and there’s always another day. Just make sure you don’t let it slide though.

16. Often the post you slave over and really care about will sink without a trace whilst the hurriedly scribbled piece will get retweeted the most. Don’t even try to understand this.

17. Limit the time you spend on Twitter and/or Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Schedule portions of your time for being active on these channels. If you’re monitoring their effectiveness you’ll know whether to invest more time on them or not.

18. Don’t be afraid to experiment with Google Adwords. Buying your way to the top of Google might cost a fair chunk of cash but so does a one time advert in a paper or trade magazine. A great sponsored link on Google can keep you in business if it leads to well-crafted landing pages.

19. Follow what other people are doing online both in and outside of your niche; however, don’t obsess about this. You need to know, but you also need the freedom to develop your own ideas. You never want to be a pale imitation of your competitors. Be Coke, not Pepsi.

20. Don’t forget that email marketing is an incredibly useful tactic for online marketing. Build your email list and then connect with subscribers in a friendly, helpful way that generally benefits them. Simultaneously, ensure you include call-to-actions to your landing pages.

21. Create an editorial calendar (an overview of what you plan to publish each month) to help you keep on track with your content marketing (blogging) and stay consistently creative.

22. Think of the internet as a conversation, a place to share information. It’s not a digital billboard or megaphone. Shouting the loudest about your services doesn’t get you heard. Being helpful, reliable, funny, original, creative and so on is more effective.

23. Don’t forget to make money while you sleep.

So those are 23 things I’ve learned help businesses get started with online marketing. What lessons have you learned?