If you’ve been ignoring what’s been happening with regards to online marketing, you need to pull your head out of the sand and listen to some good advice.

When all this began, THEY said you needed a website, so you got a website.

You built it… you waited… but no one came.

THEY told you that you must list your website in the top 22,675 web directories, but THEY could do that for you for only $189.95.

Then THEY said you need to have a blog to get traffic to your website. Blogs were traffic magnets and they could set one up for you for only $500.

But that wasn’t good enough unless you were feeding that blog from your Facebook page.

And then THEY said you had to have a Twitter account to boost your Facebook page, which was supposed to be driving traffic to your blog, which was feeding your website hordes of hungry buyers.

As you listened to more and more of these all-knowing, self-proclaimed marketing experts, THEY started sharing more closely guarded ‘secrets” about Internet marketing.

Flickr, you gotta have a Flickr account, THEY told you.

Squidoo, you need to create a lens on Squidoo… that drives insane amounts of traffic, at least that’s what THEY said.

HubPages, create your ‘hub’ and watch the traffic flock to your site… THEY promised!

Then THEY told you about Social Bookmarking, you must bookmark every page on your site to the top 86 public bookmarking sites or you’ll never get found.

You need a Press Release, THEY said, in fact you need one every week because that drives traffic like crazy.

In your spare time you need to be posting comments on every blog in your industry and be sure to add your insightful remarks to all those forums, Yahoo groups and Ning clubs. THEY promised this would be your salvation.

Along the way, THEY said that you need a list… the money is in the list.  THEY promised!

Google, THEY said, loves the idea of ‘Local Search’ and you must prepare for that.  Grab your local listing and watch people beat a path to your door.  Oh and don’t forget about Yahoo! Bing and Yelp and the other local directories that pop up like flowers in May.

SEO, THEY said that search engine optimization was the ‘Holy Grail’ of web traffic. THEY could optimize your website and guarantee page one of Google for less than the cost of a new Chrysler.

Oh, and if you want traffic today, you need to be buying Pay-Per-Click ads on Google, and that THEY promised, would solve your traffic drought.

Does any of this work?

Actually, most of this can work great if it is implemented properly.  The problem most business owners have is knowing what to do, how to do it and where to focus their effort.  If you have a full-time search-marketing staff this is a no-brainer and they are undoubtedly busy making all this magic happen.

For the rest of us who cannot afford a digital marketing department, we’re faced with the option of hiring a consulting company or doing this ourselves.  If you hire a consultant, expect to pay anywhere from $500 to $5000 or more to put such a strategy in place.  If that is not a palatable solution, I can help you DO IT YOURSELF and save thousands of dollars!

I wrote one of the first mainstream business books about planning, building and marketing a business website – way back in 1998.  My new book is called, the “SEO & Social Media Marketing Guide” and it shows you every important tactic you need to attract targeted traffic organically, build a loyal following of customers and prospects, and how to market to your social network of contacts.

If you want the definitive answer to the challenge of attracting visitors to your website, visit this page and learn about THE Internet Book.

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