7 small business online marketing ideas for 2010

In my experience, coming back from a long holiday is the best time to take some initiative. Now that you’ve fully rested, you should have plenty of energy to invest in promoting your business. Here are 7 online marketing ideas to help you achieve your goals in 2010. And best of all, you can implement them yourself.

1. Try Google Merchant – Also known as Google Base, this free service from Google allows businesses to list products or services on its first page results. In most cases these will appear just below the paid results and will include an image, title, price and direct link to the product or service. It’s free and takes couple of minutes to set up so you might as well try.

2. Try Selling on Amazon / eBay – Both have high levels of quality traffic and nowadays listing products is easier and quicker than ever. One of your goal for 2010 should be to reach as many potential clients as you possibly can. To achieve this goal you must consider selling on eBay / Amazon to reach as much of your target market as possible. Start with one and see if it works for you.

3. Optimise Your Site For Search – The most cost effective online marketing channel is the natural traffic channel also known as organic traffic. By optimising your site in accordance with the search engine guidelines you will notice that with time organic traffic will find its way to your site. If you’re new to search engine optimisation, Google has a fantastic guide which is a good start.

4. Turn Customers Into Your Sales Agents – A happy customer is a good customer. Now you can take this idea a step forward and help your customers help you. Social recommendations, the kind that a friend or family member will tell another will likely result in a sale or lead. To get on the right track, consider placing a social sharing button across your pages such as addthis.com so customers will find it easy to share a page with others.

5. Work on Your Content – One of the most important factors for online marketing success is your site’s level, quality and freshness of its content. Great content can open doors to traffic channels you’ve not considered and can help persuade users to make a purchase. In my experience, how-to guides are a great way to offer quality content which is both relevant and easy to put together.

6. Start a Newsletter Campaign – Newsletters are a fantastic cost effective marketing channel to communicate new offers and promotions. You don’t have to send many, just make sure you’re communicating relevant information and keep it timely i.e. twice a month is fine, but twice a week might be too much.

7. Open an Affiliate Program – Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each sale or lead. Using affiliates to promote your products or services is a cost effective marketing channel strategy because if you set it right, you only pay for success.

What are your online marketing tips for 2010?