| No one can ignore the power of the Internet for “getting the word out” on a product, service or business. Via Internet marketing, the whole world is, quite literally, one’s audience. It is assumed that most readers of this article are familiar, at least somewhat, with Internet marketing and that most of the readers, being realtors, have either personal and or/business websites of their own. In the following, we will discuss some effective Internet marketing strategies all of which are geared toward conversion.
Niche marketing. Niche marketing is the targeting of a selective and underserved consumer group with a product and/or service that is of need to this particular group. Mass marketing just doesn’t work. Your website should be geared toward the needs of your chosen niche group. It should be narrowly defined and offer information and/or products relevant to, primarily at least, this select group. Niche marketing = conversions!
Content provision. Content provision refers to the offering of free information on one’s website to potential customers. By placing articles (relevant to your niche of course) on your site, penned by either yourself or others, you will boost your website’s ranking in the search engines (a good thing to be sure!) Content provision also allows potential customers, namely those who might not have found your site otherwise, to locate your website by means of the information (content) you offer freely on your site. Thus content results in more traffic as well.
Link exchange. Though the search engine metrics for dealing with link exchanges seem to change almost daily, link exchanges are still an effective means of driving traffic to one’s site. Ideally, the webmaster will contact other webmasters operating websites with similar content (of at least some benefit to the niche viewer) and offer a link swap. The key to link exchanges is that the links back to one’s site must be both quality links and relevant links. By “quality” and “relevant” it is meant that the site on which the link back originates must be a legitimate site of benefit to viewers (on search engine standards) and that it must also be a relevant site with regard to content.
The opt-in newsletter. The opt-in newsletter is another means for capturing customers, specifically those generally well motivated and willing to purchase. Anyone with a commercial website should be utilizing this particular marketing strategy. It consists of merely offering a free, recurring newsletter (weekly, monthly, etc.) that provides information on the marketer’s particular niche that will be of some value to the recipient. Prospects must request the newsletter by registering for it and in the act of requesting the newsletter they are literally asking for your sales pitch! It couldn’t get much easier than this—having highly niche-targeted prospects asking you to send them more information on your product or service.
There are other marketing strategies to be sure, but of them all the above are the most effective at generating conversions. Implement any one or all of them today and watch your list and your profits grow!
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