Welcome to The MarketingTechy’s online marketing made easy.

This guide is applicable to both international and local South African businesses. We will mention the differences as we go along. Just work through the steps below and you will be well on your way to online marketing success. Just click on the links below to take you to the relevant content.

These are the simple steps to online marketing success:

1. You need a server for your blog / website.
   • If your target market is South Africa only you should register a .co.za and host with a local hosting company. This is critical to rank high in Google.co.za
   • The best local host in my opinion is Afrihost. Click here to get hosting from Afrihost.
   • Take a hosting package that includes at least one sql database. You will need this for WordPress.
   • If you are targeting an international market you need a .com website and a fast international server. This will help with Google.com rankings.
   • The best international host to use in my opinion is Bluehost. Click here for to get hosting from Bluehost.
   • Having blog is critical as this will be your home base for all your marketing efforts. This is where you have full control of all content. Don’t just rely on social networks as they can come and go over time. Own your own blog and address (URL).
2. Setup WordPress.
   • Setup WordPress for your blog. This is the largest CMS (Content Management System) in the world. A CMS is critical in online marketing. This is the platform you will use to power your website / blog and publish your content.
   • Both Afrihost and Bluehost has one click installs for WordPress. Just click the links in the cPanel.
   • Read here why you should rather self host your WordPress blog.
   • This article explains the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
3. Setup a mailing list.
   • A mailing list is worth gold in online marketing. Visitors to your website may never return, but if they are on your mailing list you can get them to return.
   • All successful online marketers have mailing lists.
   • Don’t send marketing emails from your own email address as you might end up on spam lists and be blacklisted. This might result in all your normal emails also landing up in spam filters or deleted.
   • Always use a mailing list automation service like AWeber. This is like WordPress, but for email marketing.
4. Setup social networks.
   • Setup your social networks.
   • Don’t use a Facebook personal profile, but get a Facebook Page.
   • Twitter is great for online marketing.
   • For professionals LinkedIn is also a good idea.
   • For creative people Pinterest could also be a good choice.
   • Remember that Youtube is in essence also a social network and the second largest search engine in the world.
   • Google+ will give you some Google ranking advantages. Especially in local listings.
5. Link everything.
   • Link all the above together.
   • Have links between all the above social networks, mailing lists and blog.
   • Make it easy to subscribe to your mailing list as well as social networks.
   • Using a social network management tool like Hootsuite or BufferApp.com will make it easy to schedule and share updates and articles to all networks. (Trust me, you will go mad trying to manually keep social networks up to date).
6. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
   • Do keyword research with tools like Market Samurai or Google Keywords Tool that is built in to Google Adwords.
   • Look for high traffic low competition keywords that fits your content.
   • Keep writing good content.
   • The following will help with ranking higher in Google:
     • Use WordPress. WordPress plays nicely with Google.
     • Have a sitemap (you can use a xml sitemap plugin for WordPress).
     • Use the SEO plugin for WordPress by Yoast.
     • Write lots of content and keep to a regular schedule for publishing new content.
     • Get a good social following.
     • Make sure your site has no errors.
     • Get your site load time down. Google likes fast sites.
7. Paid traffic.
   • You can use Google Adwords to get people to your site. You can use Market Samurai to do keyword research.
   • Facebook ads also work for getting traffic to your site.
8. Measure everything.
   • Use Google Analytics to measure everything about your blog or website.
   • Use a tool like Klout to check your social influence.
   • Try Split testing (A/B testing).
   • Use the rank tracking feature in Market Samurai to track your Google SEO progress.

Do you have questions? Please comment below.