Using your website goals and your budget, create a timetable or plan for your business. Where do you expect to see yourself in a year? Five years? Ten? What types of advertising will you be willing to expand to? Don’t make the mistake of relying solely on Internet methods to advertise your business. You will be able to get started that way, but you probably won’t be able to expand without seeking alternative advertising venues.

Keep these statistics in mind:

• As of 2005, 957 million people had Internet access, and more sign on every day.
• 96 percent of those with online access use the Internet as their first and preferred method of researching product information.
• During 2005, search engines were accessed and used nearly 5 billion times in the United States alone, an increase of 27.5 percent from 2004.
• 74 percent of those who use search engines research local information through them.

Simple math dictates that many more potential customers will find your business by virtue of your online presence alone. Combine that with a carefully targeted and well-researched marketing campaign, and it is easy to see why Internet marketing and online businesses succeed!

Be prepared to capitalize on your website. Every visitor who finds your website is a potential customer. It is important to capture as much information as possible whenever someone visits your site. The average consumer must be exposed to your marketing message between three and seven times before they are convinced to buy—so the more often you can put your business in front of them, the better your chances at making sales.

Some tips on capturing and using visitor information:

• Offer opportunities for visitors to add themselves to your list. Ask them to register, sign a guestbook, subscribe to a newsletter, or request to be notified when you have sales or special offers.
• Place a subscription box on every page of your website, not just your homepage. The more often visitors see the box, the more likely they will be to check it out.
• Give away premiums such as free gifts, newsletters, e-books and reports as incentives for signing up for your list. If your product is not an e-book or can’t be given away, run a search for free downloadable e-books that relate to your product or service and give those away.
• Get recognition, credibility, and new customers by writing an e-book, how-to book or article series that you allow to be distributed free—with the provision that the material includes your byline, URL and subscription information.
• Add every address you collect (with permission from the subscriber) to your opt-in e-mail list.

Developing and maintaining a list of customers is vital to your Internet business. Whether you use your list to send out regular newsletters, communicate special offers, or simply touch base with new and existing customers from time to time, you must have an ever-growing database of contacts on tap.