What is Internet Marketing? A Day in the Life of an Internet Marketer!
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With each passing year the online business world grows exponentially and there are an increasing number of people who want to get into internet marketing. But most people don’t really even know what that means or what it takes. There are so many things that go under the overall internet marketing umbrella that if you spoke to 100 different “internet marketers” and asked them what they do, you would probably get 100 different answers. Most of us have a hard time even trying to explain what it is we do to inquiring minds.
So, in this video I am going to give you some information and insight about some of the typical things you would need to learn and do if you were to start your own internet marketing business.
So, what is internet marketing? Here are just some of the things a day in the life of an internet marketer entails…
* Keyword Research – When you are going to launch a new website, information product, write a new post, or just about anything else, you need to know if there is a market out there for it. Otherwise you could be wasting a lot of time on something that nobody cares about and will never make you any money. In order to that it is important to do keyword research ahead of time. This is something that a lot of people either forget or intentionally skip over for some reason, and it can often lead to total failure.
Researching a market can be a very lengthy and detailed process. You often need to check search volume, competition level, trends, demographics, whether the target audience has money to spend and are willing to pay, and many other things. It should be done carefully and without assumptions based on what you want to happen. As an internet marketer, you might spend an entire day (or longer) just doing keyword research.
* Web Design – In order to market anything on the internet or build an online business, you need to have a website of some sort. There are plenty of tools and resources available (such as WordPress) that will help build a site for you. However, it still takes time to learn how to use those tools and actually get a site built the way you want it. Even the most newbie friendly content management systems have a learning curve and take time to set up. Then, you must learn some coding in order to make changes in certain places and customize your site beyond the basic themes/templates that site builders and CMS solutions include.
And let’s not forget about domain registrations, DNS settings, system installs, settings tweaks, content uploads, and so on. Those things also take time to do and require you to learn how to do them. There’s a lot that goes into building a website and it’s just one part of being an internet marketing professional.
* Writing Content – This is something that takes up a LOT of time in the regular routine of just about every internet marketer. Content is king in the world of online marketing. You need it for almost everything you do. Whether you are building a static website, updating your blog, marketing your sites, writing press releases and articles, responding to emails, replying to comments, sending out your newsletter, creating an information product, copywriting, participating in forums, keeping up your social media accounts, and so on… You will be writing and writing some more. It’s all about content in the online world so get ready to wear out many keyboards on your computer!
* Blogging – The world of websites has no doubt shifted towards blogs in recent years and will likely continue to do so until they are the predominant force in the online world. Blogging is a very important part of internet marketing in many ways. Depending on your business model, it can actually be absolutely vital to online success. It is great for making a name for yourself, getting your content out to the world, helping to spread the word about your brand, building up a following, or even making money from your blog itself. Some internet marketers even earn their entire incomes from blogging. Although, in that case, they are typically called bloggers, but the two professions overlap in many ways.
* Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This part of the video could be an entire course all in itself. In fact, there are hundreds of books, courses, seminars, blogs, and websites dedicated solely to SEO training. My business partner and I are even in the process of writing a new ebook about this subject, which will actually be four ebooks and somewhere around 200 pages of information. It is also a part of online marketing that can be an entire business or full time job by itself, and often is. So, with that being said, I am not going to get into a lot of details or specifics in this video about what it is or how to do it. There’s simply too much to cover.
I’ll just say that it’s extremely important and a huge part of what most internet marketing specialists do in their regular routine. There are thousands of internet marketers who spend day after day doing search engine optimization and almost nothing else. It takes a very long time to master the process and perfect the techniques. Plus, it is always changing, so staying on top of it all can be exhausting. Take me for example, my main specialty has been SEO for the past 10 years and I still learn something new almost every day.
* Social Media Marketing (SMM) – I’m sure you probably have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest, and maybe even a few others. If you don’t then you certainly know someone close to you who does. Well, a typical internet marketer like me will have all of those profiles plus another 10 or 20 or more accounts on other social media sites that we have to manage.
Think about how much time you spend on those sites every day. It’s easy to pass an hour or two without even noticing it. And you are probably just using them to keep up with friends, family, and what’s happening around your area. Us internet marketers do all of that plus use them to network with business associates and prospects, keep up on our industry, spread the word about our content, and for other marketing reasons.
Being a social media consultant and doing all the social media marketing and updating for companies is something many people do as a full time business. It is that time consuming. But internet marketing specialists have to fit it into our daily schedule along with about a million other things.
* Pay Per Click (PPC) – When you search something on Google you will notice there are usually some ads at the top above the organic rankings and a tower of them on the right side next to the organic results. They look a lot like the regular results but are slightly different. These are paid ads through a program called Google Adwords. When someone says pay per click ads this is usually what they are referring to, even though there are technically many different forms of PPC. A business owner bids on certain keywords in order to get their ad to show there and they pay for every click generated.
This is very popular among internet marketers and anyone other businesses with products or services they sell online. The keyword research, set up, and management takes a lot of time, effort and skill. You can waste a lot of money if you just throw up your ad and let it go. Top PPC guru’s can spend years learning, testing, and tweaking their systems in order to master Adwords and make their campaigns profitable.
* Email Marketing – This is basically building up a list of email subscribers, cultivating a trusting relationship with them so they become your raving fans, sending them useful content and resources, keeping them updated on the latest news in the niche they are interested in or about your business, and sending all sorts of other information. One popular saying in the IM world is, “the money is in the list” and there is a lot of truth to that. But it’s not easy to build a profitable list and as an online marketer you will spend a lot of time mastering this particular skill.
* Product Creation – Another huge thing that online marketer’s do is create information products such as ebooks, along with membership sites, business services, SEO and marketing tools, plugins, themes, and so on. Those things take days, weeks, or even months to create depending on what it is. Almost every website or web based service you use, or ebook you read, were created by some sort of digital marketing expert in one way or another.
* Videos – A huge part of internet marketing nowadays is video production. When I started my business back in 2003 this wasn’t really a big deal at all. There were very few people doing them in those days. But video marketing has exploded in the past few years and will only continue to grow into the future. These can be educational, instructive, funny with the intent of going viral, or created for marketing purposes. Whatever the reasons for videos, the fact is they are a part of running an internet business now and they take a lot of work to do.
This point is actually quite easy to get across because you are watching an internet marketing video right now. It took me a lot of time to bring together all of this information, condense it, write out points I wanted to discuss, record the video, and upload it. Then, I will do it over and over again with more marketing videos for years to come. And this is just a basic video sitting here talking to you. Imagine how much work goes into a big production like the ones we, here at Be Always Marketing, do for our clients!
Okay that pretty much covers it for now but, as I said, those are just SOME of the main things you will be doing regularly. The question, what is internet marketing, is loaded with potential answers. There’s a lot more that you will surely be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. I’ve really only scratched the surface of what being an internet marketing specialist fully entails. I didn’t even get into phone calls, client servicing, meetings, media buying, webinars, seminars, forums, support, training, and so on. It virtually never ends!
So, it’s definitely not all fun and games relaxing on the beach like many people think. Internet marketing is a real business and there is a lot of work involved to build it, grow it, and maintain it. But if you are up for the challenge and willing to put in the time and effort, it can be a very rewarding way to make a living!