Inbound marketing is becoming an increasingly more popular choice for businesses online. If you want any kind of online presence, it is important that you position your website, product or service so that it can be found by potential buyers. Since the idea of inbound marketing has been around for awhile there is a lot of information to digest. This article will aim to give you a basic understanding of the way it works.

What Is It?

Inbound marketing is an overall business strategy with the end goal of getting your business and/or website found by customers. Instead of traditional marketing that relies on attracting potential customers, inbound marketing relies on you positioning your offer so that it is easily found. Typical ways of accomplishing this online include search engine optimization, social media (i.e. Twitter & Facebook) and content creation (i.e. blogging).

Why Do You Care?

You care because inbound marketing is gaining popularity at a significant pace. As consumers become more savvy, they get increasingly more cynical when they feel they are getting sold to. Inbound marketing counters that by allowing customers to find you. On top of that, the people that do find you will often be at the point, or close to the point, where they want to buy. Traditional marketing will hope to capture an attentive audience, while inbound will almost ensure of that.

What Steps Can I Take Today

If you have a website for your business here are three steps you can take today, to start your inbound marketing journey.

1. SEO - Make sure your site is properly optimized for the search engines. This is a huge job on it's own but it is worth it. Many customers search for products and services using a search engine so it is the perfect place to be "found".

2. Company Blog - Start a company blog on your website. A company blog will increase your online visibility every single time you make a blog post. Every blog post you make is another potential path for a consumer to find you.

3. Social Media - Start a twitter account, and a Facebook Fan Page for your business. These two steps will ensure you tap into the most popular and widely used social sites on the entire internet.

Inbound marketing will continue to grow in popularity, as the population becomes more savvy. It is a tool that all businesses, especially those online, must be using. Positioning your business online, through SEO, blogging and social media is a step that you can no longer ignore. If you can't handle taking this job on your own, then search for a local firm to handle these very important tasks. The sooner you embrace INbound Marketing, the sooner you will reap its rewards.