7 Points Of Contact In The World Of Online Marketing

They say it takes seven points of contact before someone who shows interest in your Web site, knowledge, products, and/or services becomes a paying customer. Even people who are already your fans often need that extra poke to help remember the ways you provide value to them. What does this mean if you’re an online business owner? It means that it takes a lot of concerted ongoing effort to attract, convert, and retain clients.

Some avenues for success:

• Keywords - refining your keyword strategy and combining with a plan to add new original content every month.

• Sign-up form - collecting subscriber names and sending a monthly newsletter that shares information your readers want and advertises your latest offers.

• Article/blog marketing - submitting articles and blog posts to authority sites in your industry that rank well (because they give you a link back plus human interest).

• Networking - building profiles and participating/sharing your links on sites like Ryze.com, Squidoo.com, LinkedIn.com, etc. and then leading visitors back to your site and “capturing” via your subscriber form.

• Blogging - blogs are indexed quickly. You can even “ping” the blogosphere to let people know you’ve added something exciting to your blog. Many marketers play “host” on their blog, inviting and inspiring vigorous debates that keep folks coming back for the daily dose.

Your Web site can also be promoted in the form of newspaper advertising, client giveaways that share your brand/company name/URL, postcard campaigns, press campaigns, radio guest spots and such. This will bring more clicks, which contributes to your site’s overall popularity.

The search engines use a math algorithm to “count and rate” the effectiveness of your Web site content and linking strategy. Much like real people in the social hierarchy who “rate” you on who you know and which important people seem to trust you, the search engines “rank” you according to which “reputable” sites point at your site. You are ranked and categorized on:

• The number of inbound links from higher ranked Web sites and blogs
• The number of pages and links on your site that contain your targeted keywords
• The exact words used in the HEADER and keyword links throughout your site (the engines actually “read” and “index” or file you away in their memory for your primary topic categories - think of an index, like the back of a cookbook)

If you rarely or very occasionally update your site, then you’re not going to see the results of someone who aggressively self-promotes all the time using the above listed methods. Sure, you can have a Web designer and/or copywriter help you launch a static site, which is better than nothing. But it will not drive business the same way that a Web site that’s being constantly updated and aggressively marketed will.

Without beating around the bush here, Web site marketing requires a lot of work in order to be successful. Nevertheless, the results of “turning your site into a money making machine” are well worth it if you stick it out through the lean times. And once you begin to see real results, there’s no turning back!

Copyright 2007 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing. All rights reserved.

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Tags: web marketing, website marketing, seo, search engines, keywords, blogging