1K Blog Marathon: Day 27
Have you ever thought to yourself about using the internet to make money and not just ranting on Twitter?
Are you stuck in your 9-5 job and want to go on a one-year vacation, one-way ticket to the moon?
Do you have a small business in your neighborhood, and you want to sell it on Facebook?
Do you wonder how the YouTube “vloggers” you just watched is making money just by eating a live octopus?
Do you want to start a blog?
Well, if the answer to any of it is True, I’m happy for you – because you are making the right decision of your life! Today we will going to talk about Online Marketing, but wait…
What is Online Marketing?
It’s just marketing, done online.
No, really, no kidding.
The traditional marketing – posting ads on the street like it’s election days, shouting to passersby about your “Pachinko” machine, offering free taste of your vinegar, cold calling mums, TV and radio ads – the list goes on, just done online with a little help of tons of tools.
Online Marketing is leveraging online mediums (websites, videos, posts, emails) to advertise a company, product or service to different customers (leads). You should not confuse it with Digital Marketing.
According to Neil Patel, “Online marketing is any effort to spread the word about your company that uses the Internet to reach people.”
By means of the internet, you are driving traffic to your product, or you should be a frequent face whenever someone search on Google for a niche related to yours.
It aims to show to the world that your business do exist, that people need to buy from you.
Online Marketing can either be Organic (free) or Paid.
It utilizes the different strategies online, like SEO.
Paid Marketing is, as you guessed, using money to make money.
So, how can I do it?
Many types of online marketing is available just around the corner, you might even had used it already but you don’t know yet. Posting on social media sites is one kind of online marketing. But to make it clear, let’s list down the different types of Online Marketing.
SEO, The Mother of All-things-Google.
Google is the biggest search engine, I know you know it. But to reach the number 1 of the first page of a Google search is very difficult. Well, slightly difficult if you know SEO.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your website “rank” with Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page, or simply, the results of your search). But in order for you to rank, your website should be indexed by Google Bots (crawlers).
As reference, and if you want to dig more into SEO, Moz is the best way to start your journey.
SEM, The Paid Ones…
This is the archenemy of SEO.
It stands for truth. (Just kidding)
It stands for Search Engine Marketing. This is the paid version of marketing.
A quick Google search for “web hosting” gives me 4 ads above the Organic results:
This is like the traditional paid ads, wherein companies pay Google to display their product in every related search by user. In our example above, a search for the keywords “web hosting” gives us ads about companies offering their web hosting deals. This kind of result has an “Ads” label, just to notify the user that the link next to it is a paid advertisement.
Social Media Marketing, The Trending
If you are not in the Social Media Platform like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Youtube, you are missing a very big opportunity. I know you already know it, just reminding you ^_^
But how can we stand out from the crowd of social media contents? Easy.
Find your Niche. What is your passion? Do you love painting? How about gardening? This way, you will not be lost, you know what you want, and you can offer what you know in this space. If you can be an authority in your niche, you can get followers.
Shoot, then Aim. According to Michael Masterson, in his book “Ready, Fire, Aim”, you should just shoot – just start what you have to do. If things doesn’t work well, adjust your aim, then shoot again. It doesn’t matter if you miss 99 times, you just need 1 time to hit it!
“It doesn’t matter if you miss 99 times, you just need 1 time to hit it!”
Connect. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. If you have a thousand friends on Facebook, that means you have 1000 audience! And if you are part of a social group with the same interest, you can learn more and share more, thus gaining more popularity and connections.
Pay-Per-Click, The CTA Hugger
PPC is an advertising that you will pay whenever someone clicks on your ad. It can drive you more traffic, thus making your website more known to public. It can be seen mainly in Google’s result, and can also appear in social media sites like FB, Twitter, YouTube and others.
In this approach, you need to have a budget that is changing. For example you received more clicks this week than last week, you have to pay more. Google Ads, formerly Adwords, is an advertising system by which you can bid on keywords in order for your ad to show up on matched search word or phrase by the user.
Email Marketing, The Postmaster
If you have a mailing list, this is the advertising tactic you can use. You can send ads through emails to your prospect leads and existing customers. But first, you have to have a list of all clients. You can use “Lead Magnet” tactic, wherein you will give away an awesome deal (for free) in exchange for their email address. For example, when you go into a website, you can see a popup dialog that will promise to give you the “1 minute guide” e-book to generate more traffic, but you need to key-in your email address and they will send you the e-book. This is also called an “Optin Bribe”.
There are so many kinds of online marketing, and as you dive deeper and engaging yourself in it, the more you can learn that can be applied to your website or business. I bet this is not the final list that I can come up, but today, that is one blog!
“And that’s one blog, stay hungry!”
“Marketing is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content marketing is showing the world you are one.”
Robert Rose
Curbside Coder 