Accidental Internet Marketing - Are You Doing It?

The Internet is a marvelous marketing tool for a business - have you discovered that yet or are you losing out to your competition?

Even if you have not spent any effort at all in promoting your website through any SEO or Internet Marketing techniques, just having an online presence in the form of a website advertising your business or services is already enough to expose you to potential customers that are using the Internet to find your type of product or service.

Just think about it: You may only get a few visitors to your website each day, but that might actually be enough to already be a cost effective form of advertising It is also a form of passive marketing in the sense that even if they do not actively contact you or buy your product or service, you are still building your brand.

Unkowningly you might already be advertising your website and your business by expsosing your website in all sorts of places such as the signature in your emails. You ARE including your web address in your email signature aren't you?

Other places where you can usefully use your signature are in forums. Forums that are set up for your specific product and/or service offer an invaluable opportunity for two things:
1. To take part in the discussions and offer valuable advice and/or opinions. This will establish you as an expert in your field and you might attract business in that way
2. Most forums allow your signature to contain a link back to your website. Using a website link in your signature is an easy way to get links back to your website which are important to establish credibility in the eyes of the search engines. If you are doing this already you are advertising your website and gaining a better online presence.

Another important question is:Are you updating your website often with good content containing keywords that are relevant to your industry or business sector? If you have answered yes to this question you are miles ahead of other business owners who have simply put up a static website a couple of years ago and have not since updated it with any content. This is over and above the benefit that you will enjoy by having industry related keywords in this content. Using keywords in the content of your website is an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and if you have been doing this naturally you will get the benefits of it through the fact that the search engines will probably give your website a bit of a boost in their results. Please note, however, that using important and relevant keywords in your website content is only one small part of the whole business of SEO and Internet Marketing, but if you ARE doing it, it will definitely be beneficial for your website and your business.

Do you have any way for your customer to contact you online? Do you offer various ways of contacting you to make it easy for customers to do so? We are talking here of online contact forms, your telephone numbers displayed prominently on your website, online survey forms or polls, and even live chat. All of these mechanisms make it easy for your customer to get hold of you and will maximize your online presence, however small it might be.

You might already be marketing your website and your business accidentally if you are executing any of these strategies, but in order to maximize the potential of your website to market your business online, it might be a good idea to contact a professional company that can help you to run a full-scale Internet Marketing campaign.

Christine Anderssen is the owner of Tailormade4you and specializes in Joomla!, CakePHP and PHP/MYSQL Web Development to build cost effective website solutions for small to medium businesses. Visit us for free Joomla tutorials or read more about our specific Web Design services.