The purpose of online marketing is to drive people to your website to buy something. While the Internet is constantly changing as are the way search engines evaluate websites and their relevance to queries, one thing appears to remain true throughout the changes. In order for your online marketing to work, you need to provide meaningful content at your website.

There are a lot of things you can do on the Internet, and all of them consume time, energy, and imagination. You need to choose what is comfortable for you and what makes sense for your business. You don’t have to do everything. Indeed, you shouldn’t do everything. If you’re comfortable with Facebook and the results you get from it, that’s where you should focus your efforts. If Twitter or Instagram are your things, then use those. Don’t think you have to get on every social media.

However, once you’ve mastered the social media that you like, you may want to research other social media. No one media will last forever. Remember AOL, Google+, and MySpace? AOL is still around in some form. Google+ was shut down. Where’s MySpace? Facebook may be the 800 lb. gorilla right now, but social and political changes could make Facebook a thing of the past. The hard part is knowing what will catch on and what will end up in the Internet recycling bin. If you do what you like, rather than what you think will be big, you might have better success. If you don’t, at least you were having fun. (Don’t forget: YouTube is a social media and the second largest search engine on the Internet.)

Once you’ve driven people to your website, they need to find something they value there. You should be the expert in whatever they are looking for and provide the information on that. When you become a preferred source of information, you get more eyes on your page and more sales at your store.

Always think “AIDA”: Get attention, spark interest, kindle desire and lead to action. A website allows you to interact with people in a way that snail mail and pamphlets can’t. Learning how to optimize your website for SEO will help harness the power of search engines. SEO includes getting people to link to your page and linking to other pages.

Your online marketing plan should include a way to gather people’s emails and start an email list. This list allows you to interact with people who like your stuff! Do not buy lists of email. Do not send emails unsolicited. Spam is bad. Don’t do it. Instead, make sure you get people to sign up for the email list because they want your emails.

Adapted from “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days (affiliate link).”