You invested in a good website. You are publishing useful and engaging content. You even have a blog where you hope to get feedback from potential customers. And you have submitted your website to the search engines.

Good work.

Then, the spoiler: A well-meaning friend calls you to ask who designed your “sloppy” website.

You can’t believe how she describes your baby… in your face. Since she is your friend you give her the benefit of, well, friendship.

You ask, What’s sloppy about my website?

Supposed to be the well-meaning friend that she is, she describes in graphic detail the “mess” in your site. You’re both online and on the same page, but you don’t see what she is describing in mock abandon ( such as the “missing” image and “mashed up” text).

Of course, you cannot see the “mess” that she sees because she is using a different browser.

This kind of browser issue happens when a website looks great in Internet Explorer, for example, but loses its functionality with other browsers such as Firefox.

Lesson number one: Test, test, test.

This minor glitch can be easily fixed. Unknowingly overlooked, however, a cluttered website (in the eyes of customers or prospects who are using different browsers) will give your company or brand a bad image.

Paying attention to simple, basic things could spell the success of an online marketing campaign.

Online marketing is the promotion of products and services on the Internet, which is why it is also called Internet marketing or e-marketing.

To explain how online marketing works is like picking up the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and arranging them to form an image. It is not easy at all, especially when somebody comes to you with a Field of Dreams mindset: If he builds a website, customers will come.

Given all the Internet’s power and global reach, even professional online marketers cannot guarantee results. There is no formula to ensure success other than sound strategy and hard work… and a little luck.

For me, Internet marketing is an art. You must learn how to use color combinations and get to master the strokes to come up with an auctionable piece of work. The color combinations here are the marketing forms, and the strokes are the tactics, strategies and tools needed to get the desired result.

Forms of Online Marketing

• Search Engine Marketing is the art of pushing up a website’s rank in search engine results pages (SERPs) through search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.
• Pay-per-click (PPC). Owners of websites being promoted (the advertisers) pay their host (usually the search engines that put them ahead of the generic search results) when their online ad is clicked.
• Content Marketing is about providing relevant and helpful content to web visitors seeking that particular information.
• Attraction Marketing is the art of using your website as a magnet to attract prospects or potential customers.
• Contest Marketing. Businesses usually resort to contest marketing as a tool to build a database or to crowdsource content for their websites.
• Social Media Marketing uses the various social networks and online communities to achieve branding and marketing communication goals.
• e-mail Marketing has become more sophisticated with the inclusion of company newsletters in e-mail messages.
• Article Marketing is the act of promoting your company, product or service with articles, including press releases.
• Viral Marketing is the art of producing and distributing content that people would love to share with everybody. Use this to build links to your site.
  
• Video Marketing is a powerful tool to generate traffic. Great videos have the potential to go viral. It should be easy to search for video sharing sites where you can show your videos.
• Mobile Marketing includes strategies that enable businesses to communicate with their customers and prospects through a mobile device.

We will discuss the tactics, strategies and the tools needed to effectively deploy these forms of online marketing in our next class.

1. Create a good web site

Your web site must load fast. Visitors will leave if they have to wait long for the content to load. Heavy images can slow down the loading process. So make sure that all your images are below 100KB. Avoid flash. Keep the design simple. Interlink your web pages for easy navigation.

2. Publish engaging and useful content

If you know your market, you know the information your customers need. Do your homework. Give them the information they are looking for. Give specific answer to every question. Ease their pain and they will come back to your website for more information. That’s how you build relationships. That’s how you can become a thought leader in your industry. That’s how you can generate business.

3. Create a Blog

A blog is a powerful tool to connect to your prospects and build your customer base. This is the fastest way for you to inform them about the benefits of your new products and services. By constantly communicating with your customers, and by allowing them to make comments, you will know what they think about your products and services, not to mention your company. If possible, blog every day to attract the search engine crawlers and spiders to come and index your site. Fresh and original content ensure higher ranking for your website in the search engine result page (SERP).

4. Submit your website to Search Engines

Don’t let your efforts creating valuable content go to waste. The biggest challenge after building your website is bringing in the traffic (online visitors). If nobody reads your content, it does not exist. Submit your website to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Altavista, etc. (search “List of Search Engines” for more) so that web surfers can easily find it.

The electronic medium in which online communication takes place, such as the Internet.

Angel

Messenger of God (in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles).

Gurô

Teacher. The noblest of professions.

As the blog’s name suggests, I am here to help take away your online marketing pain; I will help protect you (and your business) from the pitfalls of cyberspace; and I will always teach you all I know about online marketing to help you (and your business) succeed.

Why this blog?

I quit a well-paying job that required me to travel around the world to start a small technology service company that had great potential. I was lucky to get the best people one can find to do interactive e-commerce websites, systems development, network design, search engine optimization services, content development services, and of course, online marketing services, among others.

One small good job led to another. One day, one of the boys made a bold move: He presented to an industry group the benefits of allowing us to redesign their website. He was ecstatic to bag this account.

When I reviewed his presentation, I saw great opportunities to create new revenue streams for the association. I prepared a bigger proposal and we asked for another chance to present. This time, I did the talking. Here’s my presentation to the National Real Estate Association Board.

In doing our projects, I never presented myself as an online marketing expert. However, as fate would have it, I became one because of clients asking a lot of questions about online marketing. I don’t know where they get the impression that I am an Internet marketing expert. But, as always, I’m happy to do the extra mile for our clients, even if it involves real research work.

One day I realized that I REALLY DO KNOW A LOT about online marketing. With my accumulated knowledge and experience helping clients do Internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, Attraction Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Online Reputation Management, I realized that I can be an online marketing teacher!

Want to improve your bottom line? TRY ME.

Just tell me about your online marketing pain: cyberangelguro@gmail.com

Through this blog, I hope to give life to my new-found calling and to follow my father’s profession: teaching, albeit in a virtual world.