Approximately 24% of the world’s population is now online; that is nearly 1.6 billion users, who have signed on to The Internet. Accessibility, globalization, and the development of user friendly web technologies have made it possible for online businesses to boom, with more than 183 million domain name registrations to date. This is great news for consumes, because the exponential increase in online businesses makes it possible to find almost anything that you are looking for at very competitive prices.

For the small business, it means that having a website is not enough to ensure traffic and online sales. Online success requires a solid e-marketing strategy and a lot of effort. The first step in developing your e-marketing strategy is to evaluate the following:

What type of site do you have?

Do you have an e-commerce site, an informational site, a networking site?

Who are your customers?

How much do you know about your customers? What motivates them to buy online or visit various websites? Do you know what other sites they might be likely to visit? The more you know about your target audience, the better you can optimize your site’s content and your marketing efforts to reach them.

What are your goals for the site?

The reasons that visitors come to each type of site varies. While you may want a lot of visitors to an informational or networking site, you want visitors that value and purchase your products on an e-commerce site.

Are there similar sites or services to yours? What makes your site unique from competitors’ sites?

You can get ideas from sites that offer similar services, and do market research. Knowing what the competition is doing allows you to assess your strengths and weaknesses and further define opportunities for your business.

Are you presenting yourself professionally?

Most Internet users have become fairly sophisticated within a short amount of time. If your website is not easy to navigate, is poorly written, or has poor design most users will leave the site quickly. Provide enough information about your products/services to inform consumers, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming.

Is your content static or dynamic?

Most websites have static information that doesn’t change very often. The web has evolved to include tools that allow more relationship building and sharing of ideas such as individual blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and a wide assortment of other social networks. These new online tools are dynamic, with content that changes frequently. What I like about dynamic content is that it provides a reason for viewers to come back to receive new information from your site.

After you have completed the preliminary analysis of your site, you will have a better idea of the strategy you would like to employ. There are now a wide variety of tools available which are helpful to marketing your online presence. Options range from more traditional forms of advertising such as banner ads and paid searches to social media optimization (SMO), which leverages social networking as a promotional vehicle. SMO is a very powerful way to reach many people that have common interests. Be careful not to spread yourself too thin. Using a few tools for marketing consistently is much more effective than using a lot of tools occassionally. As you develop your e-marketing strategy, keep in mind that time commitments vary from tool to tool. No matter which tools you choose, it is extremely important that you set aside time each week for online marketing.