Internet Marketing for Beginners: 5 Easy steps

There are 5 quick and easy steps to begin marketing an online business.
Step 1) Find the best keywords and phrases
Step 2) Register a domain name
Step 3) Optimize your web pages
Step 4) Optimize your inbound links
Step 5) Submit your website to search engines

For more details you can view Inspired By Growth Blog by Augment.

Actually, you may need to locate a consultant or do some research online to better understand each of these components when getting starting marketing your internet business. The good news, the first step is just getting started and taking the plunge.

Action Plan:

1. Make a list of keywords and phrases
2. Know keyword types
   
3. Choose a domain name and make sure its available and catchy
4. Create at least 6 web pages of content rich "keyword" optimization
5. Make sure your website is attractive
6. Use potential software that could make a difference
7. Use keywords when optimizing inbound links
   
8. Plan for e-commerce on your site
   
9. Create an online marketing plan to implement over the next 12 months
   
10. Submit your sites to all directories avoiding sites with "bad reputations" (i.e. spam linkers)
    

Trisha Ahlman is the CEO of Augment Marketing Group and has over 15 years experience in marketing for corporations and small businesses. She sits on several creative and strategic development boards nationwide. Augment's mission is to inspire growth in all businesses large or small when developing strong brands. We believe in inspiring, learning and growing. She can be reached at trisha@augmentgroup.com .

Key Trends in Building a Brand for 2008

This year (2008), some of the key trends in building a brand include societal, economic, cultural, political, and emerging metrics according to MarketingNPV. The seven core values of a brand and the eight principles of a brand are discussed in further detail on Augment's Blog, but what does the key trends in building a brand for 2008 mean for you?

In brief the 7 core values are:

• Simplicity
• Patience
• Relevance
• Accessibility
  
• Humanity
• Omnipresence
• Innovation

The 8 principles are:

1. All Aboard the Brandwagon
2. Cracking Your Brand's Genetic Code
3. Building Brandwidth
4. Show Some Emotion
5. Brand Environmentalism
6. Brand Leadership
7. Branding and the Corporate Goliath
8. Brand Future

Marketing NPV takes it a step further to define not only relevance of a brand in great detail, but they go on to elaborate on metrics that are categorized as "performance" indicators. Pricing structure, innovation, carbon footprint, and much more.

Deciphering all this data can be difficult for a conceptual or small business, because brands evolve so much from infancy to maturity. I remember working with a company that evolved their entire vision by the time I was through consulting them. Just remember the 7 core values and 8 principles of branding (Bedbury, 2002) and you will be well ahead of most small businesses. It's a great place to start.

[Trisha Ahlman is the CEO of Augment Marketing Group and has over 15 years experience in marketing for corporations and small businesses. She sits on several creative and strategic development boards nationwide. "Inspired by growth" from its inception, Augment's mission is to inspire growth in all businesses large or small when developing strong brands. We believe in inspiring, learning and growing. She can be reached at trisha@augmentgroup.com or www.augmentgroup.com.

Innovative New Trends for Marketing Your Internet Business in 2008

Beyond our wildest dreams, who would have thought 25 years ago we would now be experiencing web conferencing, video emails, targeted cell phone ads, the list goes on. Technology continues to challenge small businesses who need to employ the latest in trends to keep up with large corporations. For 2008, the top (7) seven internet marketing trends found on just about every list:

• Search Marketing - (PPC, SEO, Banner Ads, Affiliate Marketing)
  
• Social Marketing - (Youtube, Facebook, MySpace)
  
• Mobile Marketing - (inside news coming soon)
  
• Video Marketing - (reaches new heights)
  
• Email Marketing - (talking on this more later, keeping it fresh)
• Blogging -(continues but with more video and latest technologies)
  
• Partnerships - (alliances, affiliate programs, and joint ventures)
  

In fact, many didn't make my top seven list. Not to worry, we cover this more in depth on Augment Marketing's Inspired by Growth blog for small business marketers.

Small Business Marketers Meet Their Match

Small business marketers are meeting their match with what is known as automated internet marketing. For aggressive entrepreneurs, small business consultants are not needed as they are now able to implement their own internet marketing solutions. Apparently, the software is turning simple tasks like adding pop-up windows, communications campaigns, streaming video, and capture pages into what may seem like professional tasks into easy, do-it yourself responsibilities even for the most technologically challenged individual. read more...