Your Website Is The New Lemonade Stand

Internet marketing is a new place with the same old purpose. When I first learned about Internet marketing, it felt as if I had been there, done that. I reached back in time to find how Internet marketing today was something I already did, years ago. I was a nerdy kid who was more interested in commerce than dolls. I persuaded my dad to help me setup a lemonade stand on the lawn in front of our one-story home. I mixed up a batch of fresh squeezed lemonade, grabbed my mother's favorite milk glasses, and hung up a cardboard sign with the words, "Lemonade 10¢." I greeted my first customer within the hour. It was fun stuffing all those 'In God We Trust" dollar bills into an old cigar box.

Today, dollar bills fly across space and deposit themselves into my bank account. That's different! But commerce is still the exciting challenge that left my dolls unattended on the shelf. The Internet has opened up endless possibilities for commerce. And just like the sign I hung up years ago, we still put signs out to attract buyers. It's not so different.

You meet people, show them your wares, let them know why your lemonade tastes better than anyone else's and after they buy a glass and take a sip, they come back for more. It is such a simple concept, it's a wonder why so many marketers make it sound so confusing.

Think of Internet marketing as if you were tacking up a sign on your lemonade stand. Now, think of your website as your lemonade stand. It's easy to see that all you have to do to attract more customers is hang up lots of signs all over the neighborhood. Now, picture yourself standing on your front lawn as cars speed by and no one stops to buy a glass of your frosty lemonade. That's what happens when you don't put out any signs.

There are many places where you post your advertising sign on the Internet. Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com are well known hot spots to post your sign. It's called pay-per-click advertising. You rent sign space, but pay only when someone clicks your link and lands on your web site page. What if you get hundreds of clicks at $1.00 each. Yikes! That can add up. But it is a real sunny day when the visitors that come from each click, engage your offers and become a new business contact. That's a lot of lemonade!

But what if people land on your web page and don't like the color of your lemonade. Sales conversions will be low to non existent. So before you hang out any signs inviting customers to your website, do a sales checkup. You want the words on your web pages to show and tell visitors just how tasty your offers are. You want both substance and persuasion throughout your web page copy. If you're not sure how to write your copy, there are many professional advertising copy writing services ready to help you.

Speaking of your web page copy, another way to bring buyers to your web site is search engine optimization (SEO). This is like dressing up your lemonade stand sign with the right words. How many takers would I have gotten when I was a kid if my sign read, "Cold Beer" when I was clearly selling lemonade. People who stopped by for a beer would not be pleased. And what if I wrote those words in a foreign language. People would be confused, and so would search engines. It is just as important to speak in a language search engines understand as it is to speak in a language your web page visitors understand. Search engine optimization makes that happen. And the beauty of search engine optimization is you get free clicks. It's like posting signs all over the Internet inviting customers to come and buy a glass of lemonade. But in this instance, all your posts are free. You don't pay for the clicks you get. How cool is that!!

Internet marketing may be a mystery to you, and you may not even know enough about it to even consider it as a necessary arrow in your marketing quiver. Who wants to run up a credit card on this unknown thing called Internet marketing. Unfortunately, this nebulous selling environment is it. It's the place. Your website is the new lemonade stand, and Internet marketing attracts buyers.

We meet and we both benefit. We still have that in common. If you have a website, check your web pages for substance and sales persuasion, optimize key pages and start marketing online. Post those signs. Let people know how good your lemonade is.

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