Do you know how to succeed in promoting your business online? Here’s my summary of the ultimate search engine marketing plan. Use it, and prosper.

Search engine marketing really boils down to only 3 things: Research, Development and Promotion. Some web gurus are charging thousands of dollars for this information, and their plans are so thick with fatty padding that it takes more than a month just to wade through their content. Their plans also can take up to a year to implement.  How’s that for disincentive? My personal opinion is that this is the major reason most online business promoters fail: they can’t find the core amid the rubble.

What I’m laying out here in about 700 words gives you the map and the compass you need to succeed online. The implementation should only take a few weeks and will likely land you on Google Page One.  I’m not making any guarantees; I’m giving you a star to guide by. Put this plan to work, and you’re bound to love the results.

If you need more information about any of these tactics, refer to my website at http://www.eCommerceGal.com. I’ve got hundreds of articles you can use for free. If you want to go deeper on a topic, I make it easy for you to get top quality guides to keep you on track. Here we go.

Step 1. Identify your market and keywords.

Using the categories in Amazon.com’s Books section, locate a niche market that you’re passionate about. Use the Google Adwords keyword tool to locate a handful of keywords that have a high search volume. Check the number of results for these keywords using the Google search engine. Narrow your list to keywords that have what I call a high “Blue Ocean Index”. Use MS Excel to get this by dividing the number of searches by the number of results, formatted as a percentage. Look for keywords with a Blue Ocean Index of 30% or more; 100% is great, and more than 100% is stellar.

Step 2. Develop your web presence.

Buy a .com domain name using your main keyword. Create your website with about 15 to 30 pages, and use your top 5 keywords as your Category names. Using the Google Wonder Wheel, search on your choicest keywords and identify the 5 to 7 most closely related keywords. These 2nd-tier terms become your article titles and keywords peppered throughout your content. Your home page is a squeeze page, offering useful information that solves a problem for people. Prominently feature an opt-in form and an irresistible free offer. Populate an autoresponder with at least 10 email messages offering quality content, building your relationship with your customer, and sincerely recommending your flagship product.

Step 3. Promote your site.

Using social marketing, blogging and what’s affectionately called “Bum Marketing,” you can promote your site for free. If done correctly, you can propel your site to the top of the search engine rankings. You don’t have to use all of these techniques, but obviously the more you use , the better off you’ll be. Here’s what’s involved.

• Blogging - Your blog needs to reside on your site, using the same domain name as your website. Add fresh content every day or two. You can use Private Label Rights (PLR) articles, embed videos with a brief description, or even use relevant stock photos.
• Squidoo, WetPaint – Develop a handful of lenses, focused on specific aspects of your niche and linking to the inner pages of your site.
• Article Marketing (aka Bum Marketing) – Always use unique content. Using the free tool at JetSpinner.com, spin your articles and post them on the top 8 to 10 article directories. Begin the first sentence in your resource box with “Next, you’ll want to learn more about this topic on my website.” Include a link to one of your site’s inner pages.
• YouTube – Turn some of your spun articles into videos using PowerPoint or Open Office, and post them on social video sites like YouTube. Add royalty-free music and narration. Link back to the inner pages of your site.
• Social Networks – Develop accounts with the top social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Through your profile and posts, create back links to your site. You can also embed videos you’ve posted on YouTube.
• Social Bookmarking – Create accounts with the top social bookmarking sites, and use them as they’re intended to share information. Include links to the inner pages of your site. You’ll not only gain valuable back links, you’ll also get traffic.
• Freeware – Using Conduit.com, create a free toolbar and distribute it through software directories. You can also use these directories to distribute screensavers and .exe ebooks, generating back links to your site.

When you understand your over-arching objective in online business promotion, your odds for success place you head and shoulders above the competition. What’s your success story? Leave me a comment – I love hearing from you!

All the best,
~ECG