Intro to Online Marketing

To "Market" means to "To offer for sale."

"Marketing," for our purpose here, means to offer one's products (or services) for sale in the particular marketplace called the Internet. Marketing on the web has its own rules, procedures and methods.

Make the distinction that you aren't usually marketing your WEBSITE, you are marketing your PRODUCTS or SERVICES—through your website and other online avenues.

Ask most website designers, and they'll tell you they know very little about how to market the products and services offered by a website once they've done their job and gotten the website up on the internet.

Most new website owners know even less about "marketing a website" and have no interest in the subject until they realize that there is little traffic coming to their website, and no sales are being made through it. Then it becomes a very important subject indeed, worth studying and doing in the real world to sell their all-too-real products or services.

Because of this demand to get visitors coming to websites (so they will BUY!) a brand new field came into being a few years ago: "website marketing". It is actually a misnomer. It should be called "Product Marketing Online" or "Service Marketing Online." Instead it is called "website marketing," which just adds to the confusion. There are also specialists such as Search Engine Marketers (for "SEM")—who are happy to help you market through paid ads on Google, Facebook, etc., and Social Media Marketing managers ("SMM") who will help you make tweets, blog posts, FB posts, Instragram updates, TikTok videos, and so on.

"Website marketers" are specialists who know the ins and outs of how to get people to visit your website AND buy your product or service when they get there. The top website marketing companies do this so well you can actually make a profit selling your products or services online.

Words in a Row is one of those website marketing specialist companies whose clients actually make money. We've been at this since 1998, and we've learned there is no way to FORCE people to come to your website, or to force them to buy once they are there. You have to convince them to come to your website, of their own free will. You have to tempt them to click on the link to your site. That's the only way they will show up as worthwhile traffic to your site.

You also have to tempt the visitors to your website TO BUY. It's not much different than trying to sell something in the real world. It requires some salesmanship. Many of the techniques used by a good salesman will work on your web page to sell your products or services. Many of them won't -- they just don't apply. For some ideas on applying the proven techniques of salesmanship to your website, read Les Dane's classic book, "Big League Sales Closing Techniques," currently out of print but available at Powells Online, and possibly at Amazon.com.

Les Dane's explanation and examples of how to use a "Buy Now" offer is the original and still the best one available.

Our Marketing a Commercial Website page contains a listing of the many online methods for marketing a website that we have used to get more visitors (and buying customers) for our clients. We try to give you enough information on this website so you can use these same methods to market your own website online, to convince people to come to your website and then convince them to buy what you are selling. That page also outlines how we at Words in a Row can help you do these things, if you need help doing them.

That said—there are some products for which there is simply no demand, and for which it is a waste of time and money to try marketing them. You're going to have a hard time selling rocks online, unless there is something very special about those rocks. If people won't buy the product in the real world, then they won't buy it online, either. You have to decide for yourself whether there is enough demand for your products or services in the real world (and among real people) to warrant marketing them online.

That you are here reading this page probably means you believe that there is a demand for the products and services you want to sell online. If you have any doubts, survey some real people and find out if any of them want it, if they would be willing to pay for it, and how much they would be willing to pay. In other words, do your homework in the real world. You may have to change your pricing to have any hope of selling online. Maybe you're charging too much. Maybe you're not charging enough! In any event, you'll only know for sure after you survey.

In our twenty-five years in website marketing, we have been asked to rescue many beautiful, expensive websites that looked simply fabulous but which did not make any money. The website owners, sometimes at their wits end, came to us to help them drive buying customers to their websites. We have accomplished that many times. As a result, we get a lot of clients coming to us through word of mouth. See our references page for some of our client testimonials.

If you are doing your own marketing, you are welcome to USE the information on this site, and we hope it helps you in your efforts to make money online. If you need help marketing your website—well, that's what we do. You can contact us here.

In the course of helping our clients, we have learned what works and what doesn't work in marketing a website. The information on our Marketing a Commercial Website page is what we do for (and what we teach) our clients; those ARE our specific recommendations for marketing products or services through any commercial website.

Article updated 2024