How do you establish a strong web presence for your company? This seems to be the timeless question asked over and over again by start ups and small businesses. Well, first you need a well developed website, and if you already have one up and running you need effective web marketing solutions to drive your target market towards awareness, interest, desire and action. Third, you need an evaluation system to track your progress – or lack thereof.

Let’s take a look at the three aspects of establishing a strong web presence starting with website content development. This means textual, audio and visual content. These should complement each other which mean that five pages of flashy graphics should be accompanied by a well researched and expertly written content. Visual images such as photos and videos should have meta-tags using one or two keywords for optimization purposes. Your content should showcase your expertise in the industry which makes you the “go-to” person in your field. In a nutshell, this is what web content development is all about. However, industry expertise takes time to establish – offline and online. People don’t just take your word – they want proof, case studies, white papers and testimonials from customers. Thus you can say that to build and develop good quality content would take at least three to six months. It is never done in one day and is in fact always a work “in progress.”

There is another side to content development which is called Search Engine Optimization. This can be a bit complicated because in SEO the content developer is catering to search bots in Google, Yahoo, Bing, or other search engines. This shifts the goal of writing from merely being informational into generating top rank in the Search Engine Ranking Page (SERP). The emphasis is on the strategic use of keywords in the titles, headlines and body of the content, and even in the meta-tags of the images used (because photos should also be optimized).

Web content development is indeed a complicated task as it involves satisfying two kinds of readers: humans and bots. The web writer is faced with the tormenting task of striking a balance in meeting the needs of both audiences – which means taking note of keywords frequency and density. Because true enough you cannot just pepper your copy with keywords to ensure ranking and right categorization – this practice is absurd! Indeed, it has worked to the advantage of web content writes that search engines have become punitive of sites practicing keyword spamming.

Second, let’s probe deeper into the web marketing aspect. This is the second element essential to establishing a strong web presence. Finding the right marketing strategy for your business is important because no two businesses are alike, and what works for one business may not work for the other. The website owner needs to know which internet marketing solutions will work best for his business. Is it e-mail marketing, PPC management or a combination of both?

And again, it should be noted that web marketing also takes time to develop. There is no such thing as an overnight success, and the internet marketer which promises such is a blatant liar. Most businesses undertake an integrated marketing communication (IMC) approach where traditional marketing channels are merged with online media. Traditional channels include your TV, newspapers and magazines, radio and billboards. Your online media, meanwhile, include your website, social media like FaceBook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, and popular advertising sites like e-bay, Amazon, Craigslist or Kijiji. Both channels are utilized in IMC to leverage marketing reach and exposure. However, it should be remembered that similar with traditional or offline marketing initiatives, planning and outlining the SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of a business play significant roles in web marketing. Determining strategies and campaigns would largely depend on these initial processes.

After you have launched your web marketing tactics you need to determine if you are successfully engaging your audience through web analytics, the third element in creating a strong web presence. Through this platform businesses are able to measure their website’s health by tracking the demographics of those who have visited their pages in terms of age, gender, time of the day the website was visited, frequency of visit, among others.

Through web analytics businesses can approximate the number of conversions made and determine whether the marketing campaigns at play are working or not. More importantly the data gathered through this platform will show if a campaign is weak or if there are mistakes that need to be corrected. By measuring the effectiveness of campaigns internet marketers can improve existing strategies and scrap those with the least ROI.

Web Marketing Solutions has a stable of experts in all the areas that startups and small businesses need to excel in: web content development, marketing and analytics. Hopping from one company to the next may result in inconsistency in the messages conveyed to the target audience and may prove to be more expensive in the end. However, a one-stop shop provider can give you guaranteed consistency and cost-savings. For more information call Toll Free 1-888-250-5857, or 647-971-9511, or fill out our online form here.

By Vadood Khosroshahi

Co-founder Web Marketing Solutions

February 15, 2012