Or maybe you read in your favorite newspaper/magazine about people making big profits online.

Now you think to yourself: man, where do I start? It’s so difficult – I dunno anything about computers, let alone the internet. And it’s gonna cost me 2 arms and a leg, and how am I gonna measure the results?

Phew! You’re at the right place! Sit back, take a sip of your favorite beverage and learn everything you need to know about marketing your product or service on the internet.

When you think online marketing, you must see the big picture, have a defenite plan and work that plan.

Consider the following:

1. You must do as much as possible, to be seen on as many webpages as possible, and get as much discussion about you and your product or service going as possible.
2. You must do so in as many formats as possible: text, video, images, directory listings, social media discussions, backlinks, interviews, paid advertising, classifieds and so on.
3. You must be able to create and grow a platform where you can interact with your clients and potential clients. This is done by using mailing lists, social marketing, polls and brand management.
4. Measuring the above is vitally important, as you can then make informed decisions on where to increase your efforts and where to decrease or even stop your efforts.

Let’s take Joe for example.

Joe has his own pizza place in his hometown, Metropolis. Using age old family recipes, Joe makes the tastiest, freshest and hottest pizzas in the world. After reading up on internet marketing and the profit that can be made, Joe decides to market Pretty Pizzas online.

After many hours of hard work, Joe has his IMPI – “Internet Marketing Plan Implementation“, ready:

1. He gets a website and names it prettypizzas dot com (availible at time of writing). He performs the necessary on-page SEO and uploads stunning images of himself, his pizzas, his restaurant and his happy customers.
2. He submits this website to all his local directories, and classified sites like Craigslist.
3. He also registers his restaurant with Google Places.
4. He registers with Google Analytics, as his first step in measuring all his online activities and other important statistics.
5. He makes a video of himself, his pizzas and happy customers, saying good things about Joe and his pizzas. He then uploads the video to Youtube and tells his customers about the video, and they must “Like” it, if they do.
6. He writes and submits articles, about the world of pizzas, to Ezinearticles.
7. He registers on Twitter, with@prettypizzas and tweets about his pizzas, his restaurant and his customers.
8. Joe then gets a Facebook Fan Page, related to his restaurant. On it, he has images, a video and an opt-in form. In the restaurant, he also gets his customers to “Like” his fan page.
9. He has a QR code made, which he puts up in his restaurant. With it, he shows his weekly specials and other exciting stuff.
10. Using some of the extra money Joe now makes, he starts PPC campaigns (Pay per Click), with Google and Facebook (all local). He remembers to measure the performance daily.
11. He finds forums and other blogs where pizzas are discussed and make useful contributions.
12. Joe loves pizzas so much, that he writes a book about it, and publishes and sells the book through Amazon. (He establishes himself as an authority in his niche). And makes extra money doing so! 

Or, instead of doing all the above himself, Joe decides to outsource all this to Adriaan at Hotgrin, and do what he loves most – making pizzas, baby!

Two of the biggest problems that offline businesses face in online marketing, is to inform the potential client about them, their product or service, and to get as many links to their website as possible. The best solution to these two problems is article marketing

These articles must generate enough interest with the reader, that the reader would want to get to your site as quickly as possible. Just provide enough info to peak the reader’s curiosity, and make the reader anxious to get the solution to his/ her problem from you. The more visitors you have, the more important you are to Google.

The technical requirements for articles:

• Have a word count between 250 and 500
• use a keyword density of 2%
• keyword/s should be in bold
• headline: must be an attention grabber
• intro: tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em
• body: tell ‘em what you want to tell ‘em
• conclusion: tell ‘em what you just told ‘em
• first state the problem
• then provide the solution – you, your product or service
• write like you were talking to a good friend, no big words
• have a strong call to action in the conclusion, or resource box. Tell the reader what to do next – follow this link.
• the heading must be a popular keyword phrase, build a list of keywords at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, save to your favorite spreadsheet program, like Excel.

To start off with, submit your articles to:

• Ezine articles
• Goarticles
• Ehow
• Associated content

There are other article directories, but these are the best ones to start off with. Just Google “your niche” free article directory submission. An example could be: “pest control” free article directory submission.

Now, go build your sales-force!

Online marketing for the small, offline business might appear to be a huge, insurmountable monster, but it needn’t be.

Taking your business into the online world can be a highly rewarding experience, financially and psychologically speaking! Armed with the right tools, skills and knowledge, this is something you can’t wait to do in future. And boy, all that extra money!

Marketing is about getting your message in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and convincing those eyeballs to take the required action. Online marketing is no different.

Success in online marketing is determined by being on as many visible web pages as possible. These web pages must be highly optimized, to increase your chances of being seen.

There are quite a few methods of achieving this, some free and some paid, and all time and labour intensive, if you want to do it right.

The obvious solution is to do what you can yourself, and outsource the rest. As determined by your budget, you can leverage the expertise and time of professional online marketing specialists to blast your business into the stratosphere.

With online marketing, you need to get your product/ service in front of as many eyeballs as possible. And as you get the ball rolling, it will start picking up momentum by itself.

The main concept in online marketing is this: Provide as much excellent content and information to as many sources as possible, as consistently as possible.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization
• Article marketing
• Video marketing
• Press releases
• Ezine advertising
• Social media marketing
• Classifieds advertising
• Directory advertising
• Citations
• and many more

When you learn and apply these methods consistently, money will roll in!

:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Video marketing
• Social media marketing
• Geo-targetted marketing
• Article marketing
• Brand management
• Reputation management
• and many more!

So, buckle up, and get ready to blast your profits into the stratosphere! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b58Aboefeq0