The 13 Pillars of Internet Marketing

PILLAR 1: Website Design
Firstly and foremost, good website design. There are two essential facets of good website design: Pleasing design and efficient coding. Your website needs to be pleasing to your consumer's eyes. It also needs to 'flow' nicely. Essential coding to pay attention to includes your page title, heading tags and navigational links.

PILLAR 2: Keyword Research
There are several paid-for, and a couple of free keyword research tools available. But what is keyword research? Keyword research makes sure that your web page is targeted towards the phrases that people actually type into search engines. Keyword research tools work by analysing previous search trends.

PILLAR 3: Blog Technology
Just because a website looks like a website doesn't mean it's a website. It could be a blog. Blogs have lots of great tools built into their design that make search engines like them more than a static website. Features like category tags, RSS feeds and the 'pinging' of new content to other sites means you can't afford to ignore the value of blogs.

PILLAR 4: Autoresponders
The majority of marketing managers don't know what autoresponders are. And that's a big mistake. Autoresponders have the power to build relationships with your customers when you're busy doing something else. You could be on holiday and come back to find that your customers have placed orders – all because of your autoresponder.

PILLAR 5: Paid Advertising
Sometimes the only way of turning on the flow of website traffic is to pay for it. And that's where pay-per-click, pay-per-impression and sponsored advertising comes in. It's important to include paid advertising as part of your internet marketing budget. But only part of it. Ideally you will be spending a lot initially, but not so much after six months.

PILLAR 6: Press Releases
One of the secrets to effective internet marketing is to get other people talking about you and your website. And one of the ways to do that is to appeal to specialist publications through the submission of a press release. Press releases don't have to cost anything and all they take is time and planning.

PILLAR 7: Link Building
The heart of the internet pumps because of links. If websites didn't link to each other, then search engines would find it very difficult to determine which websites belong to any given field. Search engines would also find it very difficult to decide which website is better. The long and short of it is – the more relevant, quality links to your website, the higher your website will be ranked by search engines.

PILLAR 8: Article Submission
Article submission is still one of the most effective ways to get both readers and search engines interested in your website. By submitting a quality article for publication on the biggest and best (as well as subject specific) article directories, you increase your credibility in your field as well as being given the opportunity to link back to your own website.

PILLAR 9: Forum Participation
An additional way to become respected in your field is to regularly participate in your industry forums. By answering queries from less experienced people and having a link in your signature in the bottom of each post, again you're taking the opportunity to appeal to both readers and search engines.

PILLAR 10: Viral Marketing
Viral marketing simply means marketing that spreads like a virus – quickly, from peer to peer and often unintentionally from a strategic perspective. You don't necessarily have to think of a world beating viral marketing campaign to take advantage of the power of viral marketing. Just make it a bit easier for people to tell their friends about your service. And try and give them a reason to tell their friends.

PILLAR 11: Visitor Analysis
If you don't know where your visitors live, how they're finding your website and what there're doing when they're on your website, then how do you know what to improve about your website? Visitor analysis is key to gaining the knowledge that helps you make informed decisions on your future website strategy.

PILLAR 12: Continuous Content
Search engines love new content on your website. It shows them that your information isn't out of date and that you're trying to offer the best possible service to your readers. If you haven't updated your website for a year or so then you're always going to find it more difficult to get higher rankings from search engines.

PILLAR 13: The Evolving Web
The internet never stays the same. That means that if you continue to use the same online marketing channels, and never re-analyse the marketplace, slowly you'll lose your marketshare. Whenever you see a new website ask yourself two questions – firstly, is there anything that I can learn from the way that they do business? And secondly, can I use their website as a marketing medium?