The 10 Key Steps to Successfully Market Your Business Online

Here’s a helpful article I found by Richard D. Harroch, the author of The Small Business Kit for Dummies and other books and publications dealing with start-up and emerging companies. You may email him at rharroch@orrick.com

More and more small businesses are finding it essential that they market their products and services online. Customers are increasingly turning to the Web to research companies, compare product features and prices, and to purchase online. A company that does not take advantage of the Web and email to market their business can lose valuable customers.

It has never been easier or more cost-effective to market online. There are numerous Web sites, consultants, software packages, and other tools to help you implement a successful online presence.

Here are 10 key steps to successfully marketing your business onlne:

1. Obtain a Good Domain Name. Before you establish a Web site for your business, you need a domain name. A domain name is the internet address that allows computer users to find your Web site, such as www.Microsoft.com or www.BananaRepublic.com. Good domain names are difficult to obtain, as millions have already been purchased over the years. The most common domain names end in ".com" or ".net" and are seen as the most desirable.

It's easy to check whether a domain name is available. For example, Yahoo.com has a domain name service check and you can do a check in under a minute. The cost on Yahoo to purchase a domain name is under $10.

A few key tips on domain names:

Make sure the domain name hasn't been trademarked by someone else (check www.uspto.gov); Make sure it's easy to spell; Make the name easy to remember. But simpler and descriptive may be better — you don't have to come up with something as catchy as "Google" — and non-descriptive names require more branding effort.

2. Build a Professional Looking Web Site. Your Web site is a reflection of your business. People who come to your Web site can be impressed or turned off by the professionalism of your site. There are several approaches to building a Web site. First, there are plenty of sites (including Yahoo) that will give you templates for a site either for free or very cheaply. Second, there are professional site building consultants who will custom-build a site for you. And, third, there are multiple software packages available to help you build your own site.

3. Make Your Web Site Easy to Navigate and Make it Easy to Find What You Are Trying to Sell. Don't get caught up in trying to come up with dazzling flash and color for your site. The key to a good site is to make sure the viewers can easily find what they are looking for. This means a clear navigation bar and a good "search" box. Take a look at some of the great sites out there, and sites from competitors. That can help you plan how your site should be designed.

4. Build up Your Email List. One of the best and cheapest ways to sell online is through email marketing. It's a great way to communicate with customers and prospective customers. So it is very valuable to collect email addresses from visitors to your Web site. Offer them something worthwhile for their email address—such as a discount or a free newsletter.
Make it easy to get someone's email address, but also be sure that you have set forth a Privacy Policy on your site describing how you will use any personal information. And be sure you are up-to-date on the laws affecting email marketing, such as the CAN-SPAM Act.

5. Send Periodic Email Newsletters. Email newsletters can prove to be effective communication tools for existing customers, prospective customers, and other key audiences.

What are the hallmarks of effective email newsletter programs? Here are 6 tips:

Keep it reasonably short. Nobody wants to read lengthy emails. Make it well designed and visually interesting. Include photos and graphics. Provide multiple links back to your Web site. Make it look professional. Don't have typos, a sloppy look, or broken links. Include an easy way for the viewer to contact you and to unsubscribe from your email list. Constantly test and track how your newsletters are doing.

Email newsletter programs can be established through companies that provide turn-key solutions, such as Constant Contact

6. Buy Banner Ads. You can enhance visibility and traffic to your site by buying banner ads. The keys to effective banner ad campaigns are:

Make the ad visually interesting with links to a particular offer or "landing" page on your site. Place the ads on sites relevant to your business. Constantly monitor and test the efficacy of the ads, measuring not only click-throughs from the ad to your site, but also the actual resulting sales and return on investment.

7. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines. Hundreds of millions of searches a day are performed on the Web through Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. The search engines "spider" billions of Web pages. There is a fast growing area called "search engine optimization" that refers to efforts you can employ to get your Web site to show up higher in search results. To get more information on this, go to the search box on the AllBusiness home page, select "the Web" from the drop-down menu, and type in "search engine optimization."

8. Buy Keyword Ads on Search Engines. Many businesses are finding that key word advertising on search engines can be quite beneficial. Here's how it works: If you sell computer books from your Web site, you might buy a small ad or listing on Google that would show up when someone types in the search box a term that you designate (such as "computer books" or "PC books"). If the searcher sees your paid ad and clicks on it, he is transported to your Web site and you pay on a "CPC" basis to Google (a cost per click, such as 30¢ a click). The goal is to get qualified prospective customers to your site.

The key elements of successful key word ad buying programs include:

Purchase the most relevant key words. Write the ads in a way to compel qualified buyers to click on the ad. Send the user from the ad to a landing page in your site that sets forth the precise product or service related to the keyword ad. Sending a viewer to your home page is generally not as effective as sending them to a specific product page. Constantly review the amount you are paying per click, and the conversion of that click into buyers. Constantly test different ad copy and different landing pages to determine what works best for your site.

9. Make it Easy to Buy From Your Shopping Cart. If you are selling products from your site, you will need a shopping cart system and a credit card authorization process. Many companies provide such systems off the shelf, such as Yahoo! Small Business. The key here is to make sure the shopping process is fast and efficient. Many Web sites have found that their checkout process was too cumbersome, and that they lost potential buyers who became frustrated with the amount of time and effort involved.

10. Provide Great Customer Service. A satisfied customer will return to your site. So go out of your way to give great customer support and service. And for those who are not happy with their experience, try to turn them around with an offer of a discount, a free product, or some other benefit.

CafePress drops referral income to 1 year

Day35
Spent a lot of time sending out the free classifieds again. Every 7 days comes around fast! I promoted Super Bowl. Did a few more My Space ads and spent a lot of time reading and researching. Have a huge list of sites I want to learn from.

Day36
Read CafePress forums for a couple hours! Everyone was up in arms about the new shop referral change: now you only get income from a shop you referred for 1 year. Since I hadn’t referred anyone yet, or even put a link on my site to do that, it didn’t really effect me, but I felt for some of the people who were apparently getting a fair size monthly check from the program.
At first I thought it was awful of CafePress to do (and I still thinking the 2 month warning isn’t nice or fair), but someone in the forums pointed out that the affiliate program might have replaced this. So I spun that around in my head a bit: 5% from all sales forever from a store you referred, or 20% from one sale if the customer came to the sale through your site….hmmmm…..
Oh, well, what’s done is done.
I did notice a sudden flood of affiliate emails and sign ups going around! So I decided to go ahead and “announce” that my shop is ready to affiliate and asked John to create the link on my site. (He’s been working on it for a couple hours – I’m sort of afraid to go in there to see how he’s coming!)

Using news for product ideas

Day34
OK, My Space is getting freaky. Got an email from a guy – “can’t believe anyone as pretty as you isn’t married.” Guess I should have checked the married box…and not lied about my age.

Getting a little discouraged. Some hits still coming through on the statcounter, but haven’t had a sale forever.

Read in the USA Today that Chicago and New York City are having an “online fight” about which city is better. So on the spur of the moment decided to do a section for Chicago fans and one for New York fans. The article had mentioned Craigslist as being involved, so I did an ad in each city’s Craigslist and sent a press release to the Chicago Tribune. On our way to the theater so will have to send one to a New York paper and also clean up both sections better tomorrow.
Wish I knew what will finally work or what is a (huge) waste of my time, but it’s all a guessing game.

Sending out hundreds of emails and online ads

Day25
Well it was time to send out some of the free classifieds again. I sent Valentine themed ads to all the states and this time decided to include some of the countries. After several hours I think I was getting a little punchy. I was very tempted to send one to Nigeria telling them for every t-shirt they ordered with “no spam” on it, one million dollars would be deposited in their bank account. Thought about creating and sending “no nukes” to North Korea and “no fighting” to Israel! I did send one to Saudi Arabia too. I can’t really picture them in t-shirts and baseball caps, but they do have a lot of money!

Day26
Saw an article today about vegetarians and it suggested a support group in the area with an email address. So I sent them my “no meat” link!

Day27Got an email back from the Eat for Life group that I sent my “no meat” link to. She invited me to their next meeting. No mention of my site….

Discovering the Daily Jolt

Day14
Always looking for articles I can respond to – it doesn’t seem to work, but I keep trying. Started in on college newspapers all over the country as they were coming back from Christmas break. That took forever! Thank goodness for “copy and paste”!

Day15
Found Daily Jolt – a kind of college message board and sent about 80 of those out.

Thinking Oprah might help

Day10
Thought I might get on Oprah.com’s forums – if I could get her to notice my design it would be like striking gold! Had to register to participate and now I get daily emails from “Oprah” telling me what’s going to be on her show the next day! And the forums didn’t really pan out – I mean, when someone is about ready to commit suicide because they have been 200 pounds overweight for the past 10 years, I can’t really suggest they wear a “no dessert” t-shirt can I?

Day11
Started looking up tea sites thinking they would like my “no coffee” designs.

Going nuts with gebbieinc.com

Day8
I really like the way my site looks. It is so clean and pretty! Some people really junk up their sites. I don’t think I have enough content though. Am thinking about starting to Blog. Am thinking maybe this is it!

Day9
Found gebbieinc.com and LOVE it! 24,000 media sites! I started sending emails to radio stations all over Illinois suggesting they mention the giving up/New Year’s resolution idea, but then suggesting the “no TV” to the DJs for themselves. One emailed me back that it was very cute. Did newspaper press releases all over NY and the states A through F using gebbieinc.com. I did each one individually since I didn’t want to spam anyone.

My first sale already!

Day 3
Being a real fan of guerilla marketing books and articles my original idea was to write articles and blogs always including my URL and getting on forums…and always including my URL with my signature. But, first I thought I’d better tell someone my site existed. My husband registered it with the top search engines, but I wasn’t convinced I would be found with all the t-shirt competition out there. So I sent out an email with pictures of some of my designs to just about everyone I had an email address for. I promised them it was a one time email (which I think if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have said – they are friends for goodness sake! I could have sent them a few more emails!)
I thought the button on my site asking people to sign up for my seasonal newsletters would build my advertising audience, but so far I have 9 subscribers (and John and I are 3 of them!)
Got my first sale today! John’s sister! She wanted a word I didn’t have so he created the image and I put it in a separate section with her name on it for her to order. Then I added that we do custom work for no extra charge on the front page.