​In order to succeed online, you have to sell products that people want to buy. You have to sell products that are in high demand and have a supplier for those products as well.

The following products are the best selling product categories online:

1. Books
2. Computers, Computer Hardware
3. Computer Software
4. Consumer Electronics
5. Apparel
6. Toys/Video Games
7. Videos DVD’s
8. Health and Beauty
9. Music
10. Jewelry 
11. Office Supplies
12. Linens/Home Décor
13. Flowers
14. Sporting Goods
15. Footwear
16. Small Appliances
17. Tools and Garden
18. Gifts

Under normal circumstances you would choose your niche market first, and then build your internet storefront. However, there are other important elements to your internet marketing plan which must be implemented even before building your online store.

Once you’ve decided on a niche product market, then the best thing to do is to name your business according to your niche market while implementing your most important keywords into your business name as well. For example, if you’re going to sell business books then BusinessBooks.com would become an effective business name.

If you’re going to sell hard drives or mass storage solutions for video for example, then Video Storage Solutions would be an effective business name as well.

If you’re going to sell DVD movies then TopDVDMovies.com or BuyDVDs.com would both become effective business names as well. And although these business names may seem unprofessional to some, on the internet however, it’s all about using your most keywords within your business name and in your domain name as well. And here’s why: 

Having your most important keywords in your business name sends a clear and straight marketing message to your customers letting them know what you do and what you sell. Furthermore, when it comes time to register your www.domain name, you’ll be registering a domain name that not only matches your business name but is also search engine optimized as well. And this is called SEO, Search Engine Optimization.

Having a search engine optimized domain name is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization and also becomes a major contributor to internet marketing success, especially for small businesses online.

When a potential customer types in the search phrase, “buy digital camera”, “top digital cameras”, or “best digital cameras”, then if your domain name includes such keywords, your website will have a better chance of being found on the first page of the search results on most major search engines.

Search engines place a lot of weight on keyword-rich domain names since this tells the search engine spider that your website is exactly what the customer is looking for. And whatever keywords that can not be implemented into your domain name such as specific manufacturer names or model numbers, can be inserted into your title tags and extended URL for specific product pages.

All of this is just a part of search engine marketing which should be implemented into your internet marketing plan even before starting your online store.
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Image is everything. And believe it or not, just having a professional website appearance can help establish credibility almost immediately. 
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Your logo should be placed on the top left hand corner displaying a business name which indicates that your website sells the products your customers are looking for.
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Your top navigation menu should have text links which take your customers to the most important pages on your website such as categories, sub-categories, Help, Contact, Customer Service, My Shopping Cart, etc... 
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Your side navigation menu should always be on the left side of the webpage seeing that people read from left to right. And your left side menu should also include text links to the most important pages on your website such as categories, sub-categories, manufacturers, sales, promotions, followed by Help, Contact, Customer Service etc…
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Your main page should consist of images and short descriptions of your best selling products, new products and products on sale. Those images and descriptions should link to their respective web pages on your website. And your customers should not have to make more than 3 to 4 clicks to find and buy the product online.

​Fast and easy check out: Once the customer clicks on the “Add to Cart” button, they should be able to check out with ease, and without having to register and open an account. And fortunately, most shopping cart systems give the customer the option of registering at a later time if they choose to do so. 

A professional image, easy navigation and quick checkout all lead to ecommerce success and should be the foundation for your internet marketing plan.
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​Your marketing strategy is the final process of your internet marketing plan. And by creating and implementing an effective marketing strategy, you’ll be able to drive a steady stream of targeted traffic to your web site daily.

The following internet marketing strategies have proven to be some of the most effective strategies online.
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​Search engine marketing will always be the most important strategy in your internet marketing plan seeing that the majority of your first time customers are going to find you online by searching for your products on Google, Yahoo, MSN and Bing. And in order for your website to be ranked high on the search engines then your website must be optimized for all major search engines.

Search engine optimization is nothing more than adding all the right keywords in all the right places such as within your domain name, extended URL, title tags, description tags, keyword tags and ALT image tags from within the coding section of the webpage.

You’ll also have to make sure that your most important keywords are spread out throughout the content of the web page as well with keyword-rich text links. And once you have your most important keywords in all the right places then you can save that page as the name of the product and manufacturer name to create a search engine optimized product page. i.e. Save page as: 

Dell_Laptop_Computer_ModelXYZ.Htm

Complete URL:

wwwBestLaptops.com / Dell_Laptop_Computer_ModelXYZ.Htm

Placing your most important keywords in all the right places is the main aspect of SEO, (search engine optimization). 

However, if you’re selling products in a competitive niche market then you’ll also need to have other websites pointing to your website as well. This is called link exchanging and is also a part of search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

Link building and link exchanging: One of the best ways to build an effective link building and link exchanging system is to build your own “resource” page on your website with a list of other related websites yet which do not compete against yours.

Webmasters and link exchangers will find your resource page and begin to send you link exchange requests daily. After they place your search engine optimized link title, description and URL on their site then you’ll go ahead and place their link details on your resource page. 

And after several successful link requests, web masters will be contacting you almost daily to exchange links with you making your job of finding websites to host your text links much more easier. You won’t have to find them - they’ll find you. And with a list of webmasters and active link exchangers, you can launch link exchange campaigns not only to link to your website in general, but also for your new and most important product pages as well.

On this same resource page, you can also add keyword-rich, text link titles, descriptions and links to your most popular product pages within your website so that search engines will find those text links when crawling through your site and index them accordingly. And all of this will help to create an effective, search engine optimized website.
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One of the fastest ways to get targeted traffic to your website is through the means of PPC or Pay-Per-Click Marketing. And with Pay-Per-Click Marketing, you’ll pay anywhere from 10 cents to 50 cents or more every time someone clicks on your text link and visits your website. And there are many Pay-Per-Click service providers as well.

For example with Google Adwords, which is one of the most popular PPC providers, your link will be found on the right hand on the Google search results every time someone searches for your keyword search terms. Furthermore, GoogleAdwords has a vast network of advertisers who will host your text links on their websites gaining your website more exposure, more clicks and more sales as well. 

Using Pay-Per-Click marketing is one of the best ways to bring targeted traffic to your website within hours. And this method is mainly used for short term marketing success to get quick targeted traffic and sales as well.
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Email marketing is another effective internet marketing strategy which should be included in your internet marketing plan. And the best way to implement email marketing into your plan is to build your own email list of potential and existing customers. You can use this email list to send out email notifications on new products, sales, special promotions, etc. 

Email marketing, when used correctly can become an effective marketing strategy to bring customers back to your website, to create repeat business, and to generate new sales as well.
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Press Release Marketing is used as a “grand opening” marketing strategy to create a flood of new traffic practically over night. You can create a press release or have one created for you announcing the grand opening of your new online store. And in this press release you can describe the products and services you’re offering yet without trying to sell anything. 

You can also create and send out a new press release every time a new product hits the market, thus creating a constant stream of traffic to your website which in turn will help boost your search engine placement as well. Press releases are just that- a press release releasing information that is believed to be news worthy to the public. However, many internet marketers use this as a hidden sales technique to create an instant flood of traffic over night.

PRWeb.com for example will distribute your press release to thousands of websites and internet magazines for a small fee. And this is why Press Release Marketing becomes an effective way to bring instant traffic and consumer awareness.
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​Participating in forums related to your niche market is an excellent way to create awareness of your website and draw targeted traffic as well. And targeted traffic will always lead to more sales.

When participating in forums, you can find and answer questions on the products you’re selling and then add your website address to your signature ending. And if you’ve answered such questions in a professional and thorough manner then people will click on your link and visit your website without asking them to do so. Not only does this strategy establish you as an expert in your field, but it also becomes another free and effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website. And more targeted traffic will always lead to more sales.

There are many ways to promote your website online. But implementing these top marketing strategies into your internet marketing plan can literally guarantee your online marketing success.