In Africa at the moment, we are seeing a lot of upcoming websites (especially e-commerce sites). This is good because we are realising that technology is the way to go to reach more potential clients.
With the entry of fibre optic, the opportunities in online businesses are better than ever before. With the increase of internet users in the last few months and also improvement of internet literacy with the public, the internet is becoming the best place to selling your products and services.
In the next few years, most countries in Africa will have adopted ICT innovations as part of running businesses, organisation and even governments. Let me not go far away from the topic i want to discuss with you.
Setting up a website is not a hard task. All you need is buy a good domain name, get a good web hosting and have a professional web designer to build a fully interactive website. The hard task is the Internet Marketing.
According to WikiPedia, “Internet marketing, also referred to as i-marketing, web-marketing, online-marketing, or e-Marketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.”
I was tell my friends the other day that when you get a website, only two people would know the existence of that particular website, one of them being the professional web designer and the other person is the owner of the site. You may wonder where I am heading with this. Well what am trying to say is that there is NO online business that has been ridiculously successful without Internet Marketing.
My advice for ALL entrepreneurs out there and also future owners of online businesses is that you need to market your website. There is no short-cut.
Below i have listed a few things that may help you in marketing your website;
- Submit your website to all search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. (VERY IMPORTANT!)
- Submit your website to online directories
- Utilise Social sites such as Facebook, YouTube, twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn etc
- Back links & Ads exchange with related websites
- Write articles about your company and submit them on blogs and other relevant websites
- Use good and relevant keywords on your website. (Search engine(s) like Google tends to look for certain keywords in header and sub header. Use H1, H2 instead of CSS)
- Write a good description on Meta Description. Please consider that only 60 characters will be visible on Google
- Position keywords in the first paragraph of the body text of your website.
You can monitor the progress of your website for FREE through Google Analytical to see whether your internet marketing efforts are paying off.
The thing about Internet marketing is that you need to be PROGRESSIVE. Don’t throw all your money into the Web development and relax expecting instant revenue. In order to get potential customers you need to market vigorously.
The other thing in which I believe is also important is PATIENCE.
According to Raakesh Blokhra, an Internet Marketer, patience is critical in achieving success in your online business, he says “You may (I hope you do) get rich overnight if you are really lucky and get the right opportunity, at the right time. But if that doesn’t happen, make sure that you let today be the time of your struggle, just work so that 2 years, or 5 years down the line, you don’t have to struggle as much. Again apply the PROGRESS theory and make sure you work smartly so that your work today, adds up for your income tomorrow. Just remember PROGRESS and PATIENCE is the key to success. Work Smart, not Hard….”
If you know any other useful internet marketing methods then do let me know, I’ll include it in this post.
