Anybody will tell you that to make money working online you must have at least a basic knowledge of SEO. Search Engine Optimization is just another tool in your marketing bag. If used properly it can bring you more customers, more prospects, and more clients faster than any other form of marketing. But, like any other form of marketing it requires a plan. Before you even start to optimize your site you need to know what your goals are. What kind of person do you want to attract to your site? What keywords will you use? What kind of conversion rate do you want to achieve? Whatever your conversion goal is it will involve a living breathing person on the other end of the Internet connection. Before the existence of the Internet, before the existence of direct mail marketing, conversions involved face-to-face interactions. Keep this in mind while developing your marketing plan. Search engine marketing is NOT about tricking the search engines, it is NOT about how much you pay per click and it is NOT about how many websites link to yours. At the end of the day, it is about simulating that face-to-face interaction as closely as possible.

When your prospective customer reaches your website they probably will not know who you are. They are probably not familiar with your company and, most importantly, they will not want to be ’sold’ to.

‘But wait’ you say. ‘I have to make money. I have something to sell. That’s why I spent so much time and money bringing people to my website’.

Yes, but here is something to ponder. When you are shopping in a brick and mortar store, say for instance that you are shopping for a new stove. What are you initially looking for?

INFORMATION!

You want to know what makes the £600 model better than the £400 model. You ask yourself, “do I really need all the features of the £600 model or can I live with the £400 model?” So you are sitting there reading all of the information on the tags. You are gathering information. If a salesman walks up in the first few moments, you tell him that you are ‘just looking’ to get him to back off. It isn’t until you have settled on one or two models that you ask for help. It isn’t until you have gathered all of the INFORMATION that you even glance in the direction of the salesman, fearing that even looking at him before you are ready will cause him to come running over and pressure you into buying the most expensive model in the store.

You don’t want to be sold to, you want to make an informed decision. And when you finally do ask for a salesperson, what are you looking for? MORE INFORMATION!

You are looking for more information to support your buying decision. Only when you have answers all of your questions do you ever pull out that credit card and make the purchase.

Keep that in mind when you are creating your Internet marketing plan.

The successful salesman knows that he has products to sell. He knows that he must sell X number of stoves to put food on the table. But most importantly, the successful salesman knows that in order to make the sale he must know his product. He must have the INFORMATION his customers are looking for. He must know how to communicate that knowledge and how to make the sale passively without being a ‘pushy salesman’.

So, back to how to market ineffectively online….

If you really want to lose potential customers; if your passion is to sit around all day figuring out how to trick the search engines into ranking your website in the #1 or #2 spot; if you love paying way too much for pay per click traffic; if you are absolutely sure that you do not need to pay attention to proper search engine optimization, then here are a few sure fire ways to completely waste your time with your website. Here is how not to make money online:

· Use LOTS of cute graphics… especially the dancing cowboy one… everyone loves that right?

· Put everything you can possibly think of on the first page

· Include links to every single site you can think of

· Link exchange with everyone that asks

· Ask everyone to link exchange with you

· Make your contact information hard to find

· List your contact information everywhere and anywhere it fits

· Have no form of sensible navigation whatsoever

· Name your home page ‘home’, your contact page ‘contact me’ etc

· Use images to link your inner pages

· Have at least three broken links on every page

· Use the worst possible picture of yourself and make sure it is badly cropped

· Use the same title tag on every single page

· Use the same description on every single page

· Build your entire site in flash (remember to include the broken links)

· Hide text on your website so that only the search engines can see it

And the #1 thing you can do to completely waste your time with your website is….

· Don’t include any information anywhere about anything to do with your business

May your success be more than you can hold!