Affordable Do-it Yourself Online Marketing

Online advertising is a time consuming process which results are not overnight. This guide has been developed as a suggestion of where to get started as well as stimulate ideas of your own. Some of these recommendations may or may not be right for your company.

Competitive Analysis
My first recommendation is to compile a list of 20 - 30 key words you feel your customers will use to find a company such as yours. Once you have completed this list begin searching Google.com using these keywords and document the top 5 results for each of them. This process will allow you to become familiar with your online competitors (not to be confused with offline competitors) as well as fully understand your current visibility within the search engines. For the keyword research I recommend using keyworddiscovery.com. It is expensive; however this tool can be used in both your PPC campaigns, as well as your natural search engine optimization efforts.

Website Tracking Software
Once this is completed, I recommend installing tracking software on your website. Google Analytics is a great tracking devise for companies on a budget. In order to effectively use tracking software you must define goals within your website. Common goals include filling out a contact form or making a purchase online. Key performance indicators should also be tracked as well such as 1&out ratios, (visitors who enter your website and immediately leave without navigating anywhere else within your website) total visitors, search engine visitors, and any type of paid advertising visitors.

I also recommend signing up for the Google Webmaster tools. This will enable you to discover how Google sees your website, and its overall quality. This is a free tool.