There are many do's and don'ts when it comes to online marketing. When you begin trying to understand the online world it becomes very confusing and overwhelming. All we ever hear is the techno-babble of those who have a grasp on the subject through self education. (This includes me).

The web world is such a different animal with learning all the rules for search engines. It is a challenge understanding the social media crusades, blogging, link building strategies and after a while your head is spinning with things most people truly don't understand. This covers about 90% of the people I consult with about online marketing.

So, what I am going to do in this article is talk about some simple steps you can take that will be the seed to your future success. I will cover theory and application.

1) What is important in building a website?
When you are looking to get a website, don't believe 75% of what you are hearing. Some of it may be true but it doesn't apply to brand new websites. Most advice is for websites that have been around for a while.
    Theory: "If you build it they will come", what a famous line of crap. Building a website is as simple
    as point and click these days. Building it right is the key.
    Application: Your first task is to build a website that is easy to navigate, has good rich content and is 
    search engine friendly.
       If you don't cover these three items upfront you will never keep people on your site and secondly
       you will never use the internet to draw more poeple.
       a) Many visitors leave sites when they can't find what they are looking for easily.
       b) Rich content draws the visitor in and if formatted properly, the search engines will love it.

2) How do I get my new site to rank in the search engines?
Brand New websites, by Google's standards, must age for a period of time. (Like a fine wine). There are so many spammers out there who would love to scam the system and make their Viagra website rank NO.1 for medicine or pharmacy in a week or two. Would that be fair to you or the public? With the search engines you must build your online reputation one day at a time.So start at the beginning with the easy stuff.
     I can brag about 3 main sites I have personally placed in the top 10.
            Term
      a) Condos   -  www.condosandresorts.com currently ranks No. 3 in Google out of 58 million web pages.
      b) Huntsville Alabama Real Estate - www.alabamahuntsville.net currently ranks No. 4 in Google out
          of 500,000 web pages.
      c)  Tennessee Lake Front Property - www.lakefrontinvestments.com currently ranks No. 1 in Google
           out of 300,000 webpages.
      I have been working on these combined sites for almost four years, every day!

    Theory: If I do all this techno-babble stuff I will get there.
    Application: It is true only if you become a student of online marketing. A half job will likely get you 
    kicked out of search engine results. You must make a commitment to being a student of the process
    and work at it diligently everyday. If you don't, you are wasting your time.

3) Start Blogging and working in social media.
Most blogging and social media accounts do you no good if you don't learn how to harness their power.
Start with a couple of simple ones.

I first suggest Active Rain. (Obviously if you are reading this you are likely already here with us). You need to commit to using Active Rain regulary, write anything you would like to talk about. The weather, your business, something humorous, it doen't matter. What does matter is that you do it consitently and point anchor text links containing your search terms back to your web site. (some more techno-babble).

Also setup a blog on Blogger; Blogger is a Google company. Go through their automated, do-it-yourself setup and begin blogging. Remember to point links back to your site. Let them host the blog. I feel you get better results letting them host your blog. 
    Theory: You need all these social media profiles and extra websites to make this work for you.
    Application: This is true. You will use the blogs to prove out the self education you are giving yourself.
    I have spent a lot of time cleaning up the mess I have made in the social media world. Your own
    website and two blogs will contain plenty of work for you. Stick with them for a few months. Allow your
    domain the time to age in Google. The blogs can supply links to your site and give it more
    credibility. After you have practiced your new skills for about six months, then you can expand into  
    other things.

WARNING: LEARN IT WELL AND FOLLOW THROUGH ON THE THINGS YOU START.
This will mean the most to you within 12 months.

You are welcome to email me:    (bryanp -@- pearlwebmarketing.com:-)