1. Good Hosting

When it comes to hosting, you should compare the different features included with the plan. Make sure you are guaranteed at least 99.9% uptime and that customer support is easy to get hold of. You never know when you could need them. Likewise, it is also good to know exactly what kind of numbers in terms of disc space and bandwidth will you be allowed to use and manage. Some providers also forbid their clients to upload music or video files to their servers even if it is for personal use. It’s important to ask customer support to resolve such issues before purchasing a plan. Some other things you might consider asking are whether your domain name registry information will be protected and how many different e-mail accounts will you be allowed to use as part of the hosting agreement.

2. Optimize Your Website

In order to be truly successful online, you will have to get a high ranking in search engines. To succeed in this, you should learn as much as you possibly can about search engine optimization (SEO). The subject of SEO is vast and can be quite daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to see the benefits immediately and will probably wonder why you didn’t get started with it earlier. A few things you can do to get started are to make sure you’re using the proper keywords and to write for your visitors as well as for search engines. Writing for search engines is important, since you want to get high rankings, and writing for visitors is of the essence because you want them to stick around and return to your Website.

When you are satisfied with the keywords and content on your site, it is time to start working with link building. Search engines determine much of the value of a certain page/site by looking at the number of inbound links. Link exchange is one of the most popular and successful ways to get a good rank on search engines, and it’s really easy to do. Simply visit a Website that you like and ask the Webmaster if they are interested in a link exchange — it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

3. Take Advantage of Social Media Optimization

Even though SEO should be a big part of your site optimization, it shouldn’t end there. Social Media Optimization is probably just as important, since it’s one of the strongest marketing tools available today. A social media optimization campaign should include a few different things. First, make sure the content on your site or blog is relevant to your topic and not out of date. Visit similar sites and join the discussion in leaving comments on posts/articles — don’t be afraid to say what’s on your mind. Make yourself visible on Facebook and MySpace. Three other sites that can be useful for social media optimization are Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. But Make sure you only take advantage of them when the time is right — you might do more harm than good if you don’t.

4. Get Your Visitors Involved

A crucial point to make your site grow in the number of visitors is by getting them involved. Try to write in a personal style, and don’t be afraid to leave an open question. If this shouldn’t do it, why not hold a contest? This will most likely get people talking about your site. The prize doesn’t have to cost a fortune, since people like to compete regardless of what the award is — it’s human nature.

Other easy ways of getting your visitors involved is by including a forum on your site or the possibility to comment on your posts/articles. Everyone wants to express their own personal ideas and thoughts on topics, and by allowing them doing so, you also increase the chance of visitors returning to see how was their feedback appreciated. As an added bonus, if the topic is extra popular, the discussion could attract interest from other Websites as well!

5. Emphasize Usability in Your Design

Investing in a good design is more important than some people seem to think. With a beautiful design, you will grow in trust among your readers/visitors. An important fact to remember is not over-designing the Website. It doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve put into designing the site if no one understands how to use it. Let some non-Internet-savvy friends navigate through your Website before launching it at a full scale. If they find it easy, so will the rest of your visitors.

It is difficult to say exactly what makes a beautiful and functional design. What looks good to one person might seem terrible for another. However, there are basic trends in Web design, and if you follow these, you can be sure to please most of your visitors.

If you wish to stay on the safe side, then it is a good call to make the layout and design features on the page easily accessible and simple to understand. Try to use standard coding and avoid over-the-top Flash animations. Some people may have browser settings that prevent them from viewing Flash, which means you might lose valuable visitors. Try to think how the visitor thinks, and your Website will grow more popular and respected day after day.

Are you imaging a new 60′s free love decade coming on? No ok good. What I’m talking about is the emergence of products and services free for the consumer and paid for by advertisers.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of products and services offered free to the consumer and paid for by advertisers. A good example of this can be found on television. Unless you are using Pay TV, you get the main channels and entertainment free. But the catch is that you have to endure constant ads every 8 or so minutes. Most of us seem to have accepted this fact. If we want to watch TV we have to watch ads. And we can always flick to another station. But how would you feel if advertisements started encroaching on other forms of your entertainment?

Imagine this. You are huddled up on the couch, under a warm blanket. It’s raining outside and you are reading your favourite novel. You have been engrossed in the story for over an hour and have hardly glanced away from the pages of the book. You then turn the page and see an advertisement. How do you feel? Probably frustrated by the intrusion and not really in the mood to take in a new product, service, or brand.

Some marketers say advertisements like these will someday allow the consumer to enjoy free books. Great, free books at a price. Now I’m sure I’m not the only marketer asking myself, “How effective is this advertising really going to be?”  A person enthralled in a book is surely not going to read the ad before moving on to the next page, are they? Let alone take in the information in the ad, or be in the mood to act on any of the information they have seen.

The other obvious example is the Internet. The vast majority of content on the Internet is free. How do these web companies make money?  Through advertisers. But as we become more accustomed to seeing banner ads, advertisers have to step it up to be noticed and achieve the same results as the year before. So now when you go to a website you often get a pop-up ad over your screen which stops you from seeing the website you visited.  It is just another intrusion frustrating the users, and in the long run this cannot be good for the advertisers either.

As a marketer myself, I think we need to think back to the fundamentals of marketing. The key to marketing is finding a gap between what is needed and what is available, and then filling that gap. Simple, straightforward, and effective marketing that is informative and not irritating.