11 Internet Marketing Strategies That Work

Internet marketing can seem quite daunting and complicated. There are so many possibilities. But which strategies should you start with?

To help answer that, we’ve dissected internet marketing into its most basic strategies. We’ve also simplified them so you can get started right away.

In this article, we’ll cover 11 internet marketing strategies that work:

Search engine optimization
Content marketing
PPC marketing
Email marketing
Affiliate marketing
Influencer marketing
Video marketing
Social media marketing
Podcasting
Conversion rate optimization
Reputation management

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website or webpage to increase the quantity and quality of its traffic from a search engine’s organic results. When your pages rank high on the search engines and maintain their positions, you can get almost free, passive traffic to your website consistently.

Line graph showing amount of monthly organic traffic to Ahrefs

The amount of monthly organic traffic coming to Ahrefs.

How to do it

If you want to rank high on search engines, you have to target topics that your audience is searching for. Finding what these topics are is a process known as keyword research, and the easiest way to begin is to use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.

Here’s how:

Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
Enter one or a few terms relevant to your website or niche (e.g., if you sell coffee equipment, then you may want to enter keywords like coffee, french press, cappuccino, etc)
Go to the Matching terms report

List of keywords with corresponding data such as KD, volume, etc

From here, you’ll want to look through the list and pick out relevant topics you wish to target. Generally speaking, the “ideal” keywords are those with high Traffic Potential (TP) and low Keyword Difficulty (KD).

You can use the filters to quickly narrow down such topics.

Then you’ll want to create a page that deserves to rank for that keyword. There are a few aspects to this process. But the most important part is to figure out why searchers are looking for that topic. This is known as search intent.

You can do this by looking at what’s currently ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for your topic. For example, if we’re targeting the topic “best frying pans,” we’ll see that most of the top-ranking pages are blog posts about the best non-stick frying pans.

If we want to rank for this keyword, we’ll likely have to follow suit.

Once you’ve created and published that page, you’ll have to build links because they’re an important Google ranking factor. There are many ways to get backlinks, so I recommend reading our guide to link building.

Finally, you’ll want to make sure you get the technical aspects of your website right. (After all, if Google can’t find and index your pages, it can’t rank them on the SERPs.) The easiest way is to run an audit of your website with Ahrefs’ Site Audit. You can do this for free using Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

Recommended reading: SEO: The Complete Guide for Beginners

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing content to attract and retain customers.

How to do it

To get started, fill in the content strategy canvas. Your goal is to answer five simple questions:

Who are you creating content for?
Why are you creating content?
What type of content will you create?
Where will you publish the content?
How will you create the content?

A "content strategy canvas" table where the five questions are answered in detail

Completing the content strategy canvas should set you on the right path to creating content that will improve your business. However, don’t forget to promote your content too.

Promoting content means not waiting for your target audience to discover your content. Instead, it’s about actively putting the content in front of them. Follow the checklist in this post or this video to get more eyeballs on your content:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoVYweKH4ck&ab_channel=Ahrefs

Recommended reading: Content Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a form of online advertising where advertisers pay a fee each time someone clicks their ad.

Search engine ads are the most common ad format in PPC marketing. Other formats include display ads on websites and social media ads, such as those you see on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

How to do it

You’ll first need to choose a platform you want to advertise on. You should only pay for ads on platforms where your audience exists. For example, if you’re selling enterprise software to C-level executives, you may not want to advertise on TikTok. (Of course, if you have data showing these execs in your industry are on TikTok often, then it makes sense to advertise there.)

After that, you should get familiar with the platform. Explore the ad platform by clicking around or take a course. These platforms typically offer educational resources to help you learn how to run ads (here’s one from Google).

Ads can succeed or fail based on your targeting, so make sure you have data to back up your targeting choices. For example, if you’re running search ads, you’ll need to do keyword research. You’ll need to know what people search for and then how much you’ll be paying for clicks on average.

Matching terms report results for term "espresso machine"

You should also make sure you’ve set up your tracking properly.

Budget-wise, decide on a daily budget that won’t make a big dent in your overall marketing budget and start with that. Monitor and optimize your campaigns regularly. Once you start getting solid results, you can increase your budget.

Finally, creatives and copy matter too in PPC marketing. Make sure you’re constantly experimenting with different images, videos, headlines, body copies, and more to see what resonates with your audience!

Recommended reading: PPC Marketing: Beginner’s Guide to Pay-Per-Click Ads

Email marketing is any kind of marketing messaging done through the channel of email.

How to do it

Email marketing doesn’t just involve sending emails. It also includes:

Building an email list.
Designing, writing, and sending emails to the subscribers on your list.
Segmenting the list.
Deciding when to send the email.
Monitoring the results.
Curating the email list.

To begin, you’ll need a list of email addresses to send messages to. The easiest way to build this list is to offer an incentive to website visitors in return for subscribing. For example, e-commerce stores tend to offer discount coupons, such as what Frank Body does:

Text field to fill in personal particulars to get discount coupons from Frank Body

You’ll also need to decide what kind of emails you want to send to your subscribers. At the basic level, you should have a welcome email with the incentive you promised earlier. In Frank Body’s case, its first email features the 10% discount code.

But what should you send from that point onward? Unfortunately, there’s no clear-cut “right” answer. It’ll take a mix of intuition and experimentation to figure out what’s best.

For example, here’s an illustration of a potential email marketing workflow.