Ok, so once you’ve got your website sorted and mastered the basic internet marketing techniques you’ll want to try something a little more tricky. This is where the advanced internet marketing techniques come in. Most of these advanced techniques are based on the basic techniques so there’s no use skipping straight to here either. If you’re still looking for the get quick rich answer, I’ve told you over and over that you’re not going to find it here.

Brand Building
What do all big successful companies do? That’s right, build a massive brand. Before you dismiss this as out of your budget, let’s think about it briefly. First, what is a brand? I would say the public perception of your business or product. So what forms your brand? All the interactions you have with the public. And what are a lot of the intermediate techniques? Bingo, interacting with the public by helping solve their problems and creating a positive public image of your company. So have a think how you can continue to develop your brand.

Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is creating something that spreads through the internet like wildfire. Created half through skill and half through luck it is definitely worth some attention. Think of some of the email forwards you’ve seen over the years. Think of Youtube videos that people have spread around. Imagine having your business’ name attached to the Star Wars Kid. Now that’s powerful.

Alliance Partners
Taking direct marketing to the next level involves partnership. Think about your nice big mailing list. Now think about all the companies in your industry that have those same sized mailing lists. You make one alliance and you just doubled your potential customer list. Just remember that you need to still be offering your customers something great from the other company that adds value to your customer relationship. And never sell your mailing list or let it get into the hands of spammers. Market your partners’ products to your customers yourself.

Backend Systems
Want even more bang from your mailing list. Welcome to the backend sales process. So once you’ve got a customer, how do you keep them a customer? Have them buy something else from you of course. If your customer bought product A, chances are they may be interested in product B. Especially if product A was incredible and exceeded their expectations. Again, remember the golden rule, always be offering your customers more value. Not just trying to add value to your bottom line.

Competitor Analysis
I’ve put this in advanced because if it’s done properly, it really is an advanced technique. I hope you have some form of competitor analysis now. At least going to their website and see what they’re up to. But if you really want to be the head of your niche you need to take this a lot more seriously. Examine in depth your competitors. Work out what they’re selling, how they’re selling it, what their unique selling proposition seems to be. Why are customers buying from them? By knowing exactly what your competitors are doing, you can outmanoeuvre them at every point.

So there you have it, enough internet marketing techniques to keep you going for a long time. As time goes by I will have been writing longer articles on each technique so you can fully implement them in your business. However, remember that new techniques are not the most important thing in your business.

It all stems from your mindset, you as the entrepreneur. If you haven’t got this area handled, all the techniques in the world will not save your business. So train your mind, and everything else will follow behind.

Ok, you’ve got your basics sorted and your website is a lean, mean conversion machine. Now you’re looking for some ways to market your website.

I’ve prepared a list of incredibly obvious ways of marketing a website. All effective but definitely thinking from well inside the box. These are the ones everyone does after skipping the fundamentals and then they wonder why they don’t get the results they want. At least you’ll have the advantage of a decent website and these techniques are your starting point when marketing a website.

Content
You’re involved in a specific industry or niche. You work in it everyday. What does that mean? Yes, you are an expert in that field. So why not use that expertise of yours to help others. This means writing articles and putting them on your website. A guide, an ebook, anything your visitors will find useful and leads to them forming a relationship with you. You build trust, you get people spending time on your website, and you improve your search engine rankings. Win, win, win!

Advertising (Banner Ads)
This is a complete waste of money if you ask me. Traditional advertising just doesn’t perform on the internet, despite having your flash moving, eye catching designs. These are more likely to have me leave a website than actually click on an ad. But if you test it and it works for you, more power to you. You’re better off to put your money towards advertorials or creative advertising solutions.

Pay per Click (PPC)
Since traditional advertising wasn’t working, some bright spark came up with Pay per Click advertising. A much better model that is actually worth investing your money in if you do it right. Just remember to target your niches and try to find qualified customers rather than just any random visitor and you can have a lot of success with PPC.

Newsletters
The newsletter subscriber list can be a goldmine for your website. Most people don’t use it correctly and we’ll discuss that more a little later under Direct Marketing. You need to have a way to collect emails and a newsletter, usually offering a free gift for your email, is the standard way to go. They’re becoming a bit overused now and you need to make sure you really give people a reason to join your subscription list.

Link Building
Having your website link on other websites is obviously a good way to get visitors and it helps your search engine rankings immensely as well. Just be aware that gone are the days when you just exchanged links with anyone. You need links from websites related to yours and preferably ones where you don’t have to link back. How do you achieve this? Create a website with excellent content that others want to link to of course.

Blogs and Forums
Remember, you’re an expert in your field. So go out and share that expertise with the community. Go and visit the blogs and forums that talk about your area and help other people. Free advice can get them visiting your website and builds trust again. It means you’re not some faceless website on the internet; instead you’re a friend who helped them out with a problem once.

Article Submission
You’ve been writing articles for your website so why not share your expertise with even more people. With loads of free article submission directories, these articles can get picked up and used in websites and email newsletters all over the world. Be aware that this is a little swamped with submissions now too so you’ll need high quality articles and some luck for people to notice.

Press Releases
New products? New website design? New staff? Something going on with your company? Write a press release about it. Again there are submission directories that will publish your press release and put it in front of journalists for your industry or niche. Not as tapped as article submission and if you learn to write good press releases you can get a lot of exposure through this.

Direct Marketing
Now you should have a nice list of newsletter subscribers and past customers. So what are you doing with this list? Are you sending them targeted offers that have them drooling over their keyboards? Learn how to write sales copy and create offers that add value to your customers and money to your bottom line.

So there you have the bread and butter techniques for marketing your website. You might have some more you’d like me to add as well but I think I’ve covered the main ones. When you’ve got these under control you can climb out of the box a little and move on to some advanced internet marketing techniques.

Expanding your business can be difficult at times, especially when you’re doing all the work yourself. The secret is to exploit the power of Strategic Alliances. Find a company that serves your customer base and see what kind of joint ventures you can do.

This could be as simple as being advertised as a trusted friend in their mailing list. Or you could group products together and make joint offers to your customers. In a strong alliance you could even up-sell each others products.

Create a great network, use it creatively, and your business will grow overnight.

Over the last few weeks I’ve managed to meet quite a few people that can help my business through networking. Not just new clients but also people who I can add to my team when I need them. It’s exceptionally easy here in Madrid considering the small nature of the English speaking community but it can work anywhere.

So when you’re out and about, talk about what you do and listen to what other people do. Who knows when a graphic designer or marketing guru might pop up on your doorstep. Also remember to help others in their networking. When we all help each other by matching skills to needs, everyone benefits. And with the popularity of social networking websites now, your possible skill-base just expanded around the globe.